


The Captain and the Sniper (and the Reindeer)

by bananabog



Category: One Piece
Genre: Boys Being Boys, M/M, and fluff, mostly water 7 angst lol, teeth-rotting fluff, ten years later and luso is still the rarest rarepair that ever rarepaired apparently haha, the dumbass duo, the dumbass trio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 19:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 18,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7476069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bananabog/pseuds/bananabog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miscellaneous Luffy/Usopp drabbles and one-shots. Some Lu/Uso/Cho fluff sprinkled in. </p>
<p>Originally posted on LJ in 2006.<br/> <br/><b>Listed as "Completed" as it'll no longer be updated.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Journey - Map of the Heart (T) Luffy/Usopp

**Author's Note:**

> 2016 AN: Oh god, where do I begin? Luffy/Usopp might sound like a ridiculous pairing but jesus, these two boys were my fucking OTP for a long ass time. Just... I fucking loved these two. I still do, even ten years out of the fandom. 
> 
> These were all stuff I wrote for The Pair That No One Else Shipped back in 2006. Re-posting them here for the other few souls who love this pairing as much as I did.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drabbles for the "Journey" theme drabble challenge, for op_drabble_3k on LJ.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers up to Water 7.
> 
> Originally posted Oct. 6th, 2006. Part 1 of 2.

**1\. Of a Lifetime**  
  
Five-forty-three in the morning, and the sun began its leisured awakening, stretching slow arms of burning crimson across the cold sky as it yawned over the horizon. The gulls began twittering, dolphins leapt out of the glittering waves to cackle hello, and the wind chased the scent of brine and smoke and something grilling golden across the waves as a distant, familiar roar grew increasingly louder.  
  
“ - FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDD!!!!”  
  
Luffy lurched out his hammock and up the mast, almost taking the hatch with him; leaving Usopp in a tangled mess of nightclothes and hammock. Usopp sighed. He really hated his alarm clock.  
  
**2\. Mystery Mountain**  
  
The cannon fire had been unexpected. More so for the person who'd pulled off said act.  
  
_Luffy,_ Usopp thought fleetingly, somewhat stunned, somewhat approvingly, as the Merry miraculously slowed to a halt right before it could dash itself against the gargantuan obstacle in their path, _is a damn genius._  
  
Then Merry's head fell off, and Luffy socked the whale in its equally gargantuan eye before anyone could move to stop him.  
  
_I TAKE IT BACK I TAKE IT BACK I TAKE IT BACK_ , Usopp screamed inwardly, as he and Zoro kicked their still-danger-oblivious captain in the back of his rubber head.  
  
**3\. Midnight Dreamer**  
  
There are days when everything seems to exist to remind him of his failures, and the last thing Usopp needs around is the captain, because Luffy surpasses him at everything he isn’t. But the captain’s a stubborn bastard, almost as much as he is; in the end, Usopp lets him hover around the other side of the nest (don’t talk, leave me for a bit) while he stares out over the rippling night waves.  
  
_To be a brave warrior of the seas._ He can feel Luffy’s curious, warm gaze on his back, and he buries his face into his arms.  
  
**4\. On a Saturday Night**  
  
The town they were in was holding a buffet, and Luffy had a slab of meat dangling from between his teeth. He looked ridiculous.  
  
The captain bounced cheerfully up to him. “FREE FOOD, USOPP!” he shouted happily into the sniper’s ear over the roar of celebratory music in the background. “HURRY AND EAT BEFORE IT’S ALL GONE!”  
  
“You mean, before _you_ eat all of it.”  
  
“Oh.” Luffy frowned. Then he grinned, plucked the half-eaten, saliva-slathered piece of meat from his mouth and tried to cram it past the sniper’s lips. “It’s okay, I saved this for you!”  
  
_“LIAR,”_ Usopp screeched.  
  
**5\. I'm Gonna Leave You**  
  
“Viviiiiiiiiii,” Luffy mourned for the umpteenth time that night, rocking woefully in his hammock as he hugged his knees close.  
  
Usopp chucked a pillow at him. There was a friendly scuffle, and after that they went silent for a while as the lights dimmed.  
  
“Hey.” Usopp kept his eyes on the ceiling. “If… one day… we had to leave, too… what would you do?”  
  
Luffy didn’t blink. “I’d write letters.”  
  
Usopp frowned. “But you can’t write.”  
  
“Then write them for me.”  
  
“…totally missed the question, there.”  
  
Luffy stuck his tongue out. “Good niiiiiiiight, Usopp.”  
  
“Night, moron.”  
  
Usopp slept grinning anyway.  
  
**6\. Look Into the Future**  
  
Luffy scrunched up his nose. “……it’s a… poop,” he said, finally.  
  
“No, idiot, it’s a dog.” Usopp tilted the teacup around in his hands, rotating the dregs at the base into different views, “a dog with two malformed legs and only half a head.”  
  
“What kind of dog has only two legs?!”  
  
“Wait, wait,” Usopp gasped, “I – it’s coming together now – I can see it – it’s – _it’s_ \- ”  
  
“LONGNOSE,” Sanji informed him as he slammed open the galley door, dangerous kitchen utensils in hand as he stalked towards them, “YOU ARE GOING TO DIE FOR WASTING PERFECTLY GOOD TEA.”  
  
**7\. Spaceman**  
  
“You know,” began Usopp, watching as the stars blinked sleepily at them from the night sky, “they say that Taurus and Aries don't mix well.”  
  
“Taurus and Aries?” Luffy became visibly excited. “Are those some kind of meat? They sound tasty!”  
  
“...beef and lamb chop. Yeah.”  
  
“Well, it depends.” Luffy frowned and looked thoughtful. “It's not like they taste any different. But sometimes the right sauce makes everything taste a million times better.”  
  
Silence again as both boys tried searching for things that didn't exist in the gaps of universe.  
  
“...so, when do I get to try what Taurus and Aries taste like?”  
  
_Author's Notes: Usopp's birthday is on April 1 (Aries) while Luffy's is on May 5 (Taurus). Strangely enough, their horoscopes better reflect each others' personalities than themselves._  
  
**8\. I Would Find You**  
  
Marines everywhere and after five minutes none were left standing. Luffy ran from cell to cell, gasping, eyes scanning the grimy darkness as his sandals slapped a terrified chorus against the gray stone floor.  
  
“Usopp's been captured,” and that was all he heard before he took off. A hundred cells or more and still no sign of the sharpshooter.  
  
Another body skidded out around a corner and they almost took each other out before they realized.  
  
“Got held up.” Usopp clutched his reddened stomach, catapult in hand. He grinned, but his eyes stayed bloodshot wide.  
  
Luffy carried him back.  
  
**9\. Wheel In the Sky**  
  
“Horses,” said Usopp, solemnly, “great horses the size of elephants, with pelts of molten ivory and manes as wild and vivid as the blaze of a hundred sunsets. He hitches them up everyday to his chariot of gold, takes them for their morning stroll across the sea of sky.”  
  
“Cooooooooool. ...How come the gold doesn't melt?”  
  
“It's magic gold. It doesn't melt.”  
  
“Cooooooooool. What happens when night comes?”  
  
“Night doesn't come. It's just there. It's like passing a lantern over the walls of a dark cave.”  
  
“And the stars?”  
  
“Are stones from the planets. Fragments that fell from their explosive birth and got stuck somehow.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Cooooooooool.”  
  
**10\. Feeling That Way**  
  
She watches them dangle their legs over the waves, letting the salt spray wash their bare feet as they drum a beat against the wood with their heels. They're being bored (no trouble to stir or havoc to wreck or things stupid that needed to be done to get yelled at for stress relief).  
  
Then Luffy shifts a little (so his shoulder nudges Usopp's) and puts a casual hand atop the sniper's.  
  
She waits (for a smile, a shared laugh, a meaningful glance) but nothing happens and they continue kicking the wood (and being bored and sulking).  
  
_Boys,_ she thinks.  
  
**11\. Lights**  
  
“What are you doing?” hissed Usopp, as Luffy pushed him over to stand against the porthole.  
  
“Don’t move.” The captain bounced back, knees lifting high as he capered backwards to a stop. Then he stuck his fingers into a rectangle and started shifting his hands around, tongue between his teeth, grimacing.  
  
“Riiiiiiiight – there!”  
  
“Eh?” The sniper turned to look out the window - and was promptly blasted in the face with the very first rays of blinding dawn.  
  
“AWESOME, IT REALLY _IS_ AS IF YOUR WHOLE HEAD’S ON FIRE!”  
  
“GOING TO KILL YOU, WHEN MY EYES START WORKING AGAIN – ”  
  
**12\. Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'**  
  
Luffy was a touch sort of person. It was his way of communicating, of connecting, the way he conversed; like how his actions always spoke louder than his words.  
  
Friendly slaps to the back, pokes to the forehead, fists in cloth and hair as they tumbled across the ship, scowling and biting and laughing. Winding a curl of hair around his finger, hands traveling higher to fiddle with his ears and Usopp had to slap them away (he did say he was ticklish).  
  
But hugs – those he welcomed fully. Luffy hated letting go of things that meant dear to him.  
  
**13\. Too Late**  
  
Three weeks of careful cutting, coiling, and smoothing over.  
  
Two days of meticulous detailing, engraving, and painting.  
  
Twenty hours to fire the clay, get it solid, finished, complete.  
  
One second for Luffy to barge open the door as he was emerging, and the delicate sculpture tumbled from Usopp’s hands; shattered into a thousand iridescent pieces across the wooden floor.  
  
Luffy kept apologizing. He was sorry, he hadn’t known, he didn’t mean it, he was sorry.  
  
But Usopp kept himself holed up in Nami’s room. And Luffy continued to cut his fingers trying to gather the beautiful shards off the floor.  
  
**14\. Any Way You Want It**  
  
“Have at.” Luffy folded his arms and tried to look away.  
  
“I’ll take this one.” Usopp tapped his finger over a tin of rich, dark chocolate ice-cream. “And this one, too; caramel, toffee” – Luffy started twitching – “…mint sounds good, too – coffee, tiramisu, and… hazelnut.”  
  
Luffy paid. They sat themselves at a little white table that barely held room for the enormous tub of ice-cold heaven between them. Usopp dug out a hefty scoop of the dessert, took a long, slow, torturously sinful lick.  
  
Luffy was completely still save for his violent convulsing.  
  
“My birthday,” Usopp reminded him, licking his lips.  
  
**15\. Walks Like a Lady**  
  
He’d asked about models. About why they had to walk like _that_ and jerk their shoulders and look all solemn and such. After that it pretty much degraded into a exaggeration fest, with imitations of The Walk getting increasingly horrendously over-emphasized. And Sanji shouted for them to shut up because he couldn’t sleep but they only laughed harder because _he_ walked funny, too.  
  
“Naaaami-swaaaaaaan!” sang Luffy, wriggling his ass and twirling around the room with a hastily-scribbled paper heart taped over his right eye, and Usopp went into paroxysmal fits of laughter.  
  
The next morning saw grieving over banned breakfasts.  
  
**16\. The Party's Over**  
  
“Tell me, Nami,” he had been serious, “am I really a coward?”  
  
“Yes. And an idiot, as well. Now go and apologize.”  
  
He’d gone laughing. Threw himself into the merry-making and rum and food and grinning faces, and tried to forget. Nami meant well, he knew. But he wanted the comfort. Wanted selfish reassurance.  
  
Luffy caught his gaze over the table. Wrinkled his brow and made to get up. But Cricket gave a sudden exclamation and all was forgotten in the following confusion.  
  
In the darkest corners of Usopp’s mind, the shadow of doubt grew just a little bit larger.  
  
**17\. Who's Cryin' Now**  
  
He was crying because he’d lost.  
  
Not because he had so many thoughts he couldn’t think straight.  
  
Not because it’d hurt with every aim he’d taken.  
  
Not because it’d rent him apart, to be shouting those words at the closest friend he’d ever had.  
  
Not because he’d fought a fight he wished to death he never had to but did.  
  
Not because he knew he’d hurt Luffy in the worst possible way, and not by accident.  
  
Not because it was his fault.  
  
Not that victory would have mattered.  
  
_Keep lying_ , he told himself, even as he felt his heart shatter.  
  
**18\. Don't Stop Believin'**  
  
He could see that she understood something had happened, in her absence over the past few days. But she didn’t press. He coughed the blood from his throat and tried to speak and hoped Robin would listen.  
  
“When it comes to pirates,” – and it was so hard to speak. But he kept his voice clear and strong for her, because she still had a chance – “you can’t leave a crew without the captain’s permission.”  
  
Suddenly he was really glad for the mask.  
  
“You should – ”  
  
_hypocrite_  
  
“– have faith in Luffy.”  
  
_Have faith in the captain I was stupid enough to abandon._  
  
**19\. Open Arms**  
  
He kept pushing him away and Luffy didn’t understand why. Done was done and over was over, but the sniper kept scrambling after the dark things he’d thrown out, clinging to them like a desperate beggar, like it was all he had left.  
  
Luffy hadn’t forgotten. The memories sat tucked away in the very depth of his soul, dusty and blood-stained and marked with dried tears. The difference was that he left them there. Usopp kept taking them out to clean.  
  
He held Usopp every night. Listened to his heart bleed, and added another freshly-stained memory to the growing pile.  
  
**20\. Still They Ride**  
  
It has to get out. There’s too much confusion and pent-up frustration and hurt, and the boys, being boys, settle it the way they know best: by fighting.  
  
It’s not an angry fight. There’s no hate or fear or pain this round, and they wind up collapsed over each other on the floor several minutes later.  
  
Luffy grapples across the wood, winds his fingers into Usopp’s and holds on tight.  
  
_It's alright._  
  
Usopp barks a tired laugh.  
  
_Now, let's move forward._  
  
The crew is waiting when they finally emerge, bloody but smiling and hand in hand.  
  
_We all are one._


	2. Journey - Map for the Future (T) Luffy/Usopp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drabbles for the "Journey" theme drabble challenge, for op_drabble_3k on LJ.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted Oct. 6th, 2006. Part 2 of 2.
> 
> Future AU fic.

**21\. Separate Ways**  
  
“I'll keep sailing.” Luffy's voice was bright, and he laughed as he watched the sun rise. “The sea's big. There're probably places we've never seen before. I want to go there.”  
  
Usopp nodded, silently.  
  
“You?”  
  
“I'm returning. I miss Kaya. And my former crew.” He inhaled the morning air. “I've so much to tell them. And the village. Things must have changed by now. Maybe they'll be open to hearing my stories this time.”  
  
“They ain't lies anymore. They'll listen.”  
  
He wished he could stop crying. “I'll tell them about you.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
The Pirate King smiled warmly, and bid his greatest warrior farewell.  
  
**22\. Faithfully**  
  
“Luffy-sencho, you've got a letter,” shouted his navigator, and he didn't have to turn to know that the letter wasn't for him, but _from_ him.  
  
Another bounced mail. He frowned, as the gull bearing the envelope grew impatient, flew over to drop it into his lap. Luffy ignored it, staring instead at his own bold writing across the white paper. Maybe he'd written the address wrong, or Usopp had moved.  
  
But they'd promised to write. It wasn't any reason why Usopp wasn't sending him anything.  
  
He sent the letter out again anyway, even as his gut knotted. He trusted his former marksman.  
  
**23\. After the Fall**  
  
It was a tattered, torn strip. Crosshatched, grayed and small enough to wind around three fingers, and it barely fit his fist as he clenched it tight and tried not to make sense of the situation.  
  
_Teeth marks,_ his doctor concluded, after a lengthy study of the cloth's jagged edges, _from the bite of a sea monster._  
  
He'd watched Usopp stitch his name into the lining before. With trembling hands Luffy turned the cloth over. The letters  
  


_US P_

  
  
stared back at him, black thread bleached stark deathly white.  
  
“Turn back to East Blue,” he ordered.  
  
He wasn't the only one who needed to grieve.  
  
**24\. Send Her My Love**  
  
He hasn't realized how much time has actually passed. (it seemed only just yesterday) Kaya's a woman now; she's beautiful, stronger than he'd remembered her, and her smile is still gentle (like the new creases at the corners of her eyes).  
  
He says it bluntly. Luffy's never been one for tact and he knows its pointless to try dancing about the subject.  
  
She nods. (she pats the cushion beside her, motions for him to sit down.)  
  
“Tell me about him.”  
  
So Luffy talks. He's not a storyteller. (but they both smile and laugh and cry and allow the pain to hurt.)  
  
**25\. Chain Reaction**  
  
Luffy doesn't write often (he can't) and when he does it's usually something serious. His former nakama don't write back, but he knows they've gotten his messages and that they're all grieving in their private worlds.  
  
Then one day, not one, but six seagulls bearing distinctly individual packages come to perch on his railings.  
  


_He's not dead_

He's not dead

Usopp's alive

He's still alive

Usopp's not dead

  
  
He's shaking when he unfolds the last letter, and recognizes the handwriting before he's read the words.  
  


_The Great Captain Usopp isn't defeated that easily_

  
  
And those are the best eight words he's ever read in his entire life.  
  
**26\. Only the Young**  
  
It's his first time using a Den Den Mushi (birthday gift from the crew). There's static, and then a girl's voice, “Captain Usopp's Pirate Crew of One speaking.”  
  
Luffy grins. “Hey, Usopp.”  
  
He hears a mad scramble, Kaya chiding him about something, and then Usopp's ecstatic, “Luffy! God, you bastard, I thought something had happened to you.”  
  
“No swearing in front of the kids,” Luffy reminds him.  
  
“Asshole,” the sniper shoots back, and when they laugh it feels like they're seventeen again.  
  
Luffy ends up racking an enormous bill and then the crew remembers why they preferred him to write instead.  
  
**27\. Be Good to Yourself**  
  
Days turned to weeks to months to years, and the letters between them stopped becoming so frequent. Usopp didn't really notice, too busy with menial things like schedules and work and family.  
  
It hit him while he chased after the little ones on the beach. The sun was setting, and he recalled another day when it was rising, promises made across the swirling waves. It smelt exactly like it had been all those years ago.  
  
Kaya watched her husband gaze listlessly across the waves, and sighed, eyes sadly quiet, understanding. _He used to be happier,_ she thought.  
  
**28\. Girl Can't Help It**  
  


_PIRATE KING TO BE EXECUTED IN FIVE DAYS_

  
  
“I have to leave,” he stammers, even as he yanks on his goggles and boots and grabs weapons that feel like relics, like forgotten memories, “I can't - Luffy can't - I won't let it happen. He can't die. I'm so sorry, Kaya - please understa - ”  
  
She shuts him up with a kiss.  
  
“Go,” she says.  
  
“I love you.” He gives her one last grateful, crushing hug before he's off, sprinting towards a sea he hasn't sailed in ages. But he's desperate, not joyful, and Kaya folds her fingers together and prays.  
  
**29\. I'll Be Alright Without You**  
  
It was hell like he hadn't experienced since a long time ago, but all of Luffy's nakama had shown up and they had survived and Luffy wasn't dead.  
  
“Oi,” Luffy coughed, even as a battered Chopper (gods, he missed them all so much) began dressing his injuries, “I said before that if I died trying to achieve my dreams, then at least I died trying.”  
  
“You became the Pirate King,” Zoro pointed out. “It's different now.”  
  
“You're still our captain,” Sanji added.  
  
“Always have been,” Usopp agreed, and wasn't surprised to find his throat constricted.  
  
Luffy laughed. (he'd missed that, too.)  
  
**30\. Why Can't This Night Go on Forever?**  
  
“Once a pirate, always a pirate.” Luffy looked out across the sea. “She calls for me.”  
  
Usopp's gaze didn't waver. “The second time you mightn't get so lucky.”  
  
“I know.” Luffy smiled, closed his eyes. Breathed in the morning air. “Pirate Kings don't live very long, anyway, so it's okay.”  
  
They watched as the sun drew itself higher, brighter.  
  
“I miss it,” Usopp said suddenly.  
  
Luffy nodded. “Wanna sail with me again?”  
  
“I'm too old.” He chuckled, fondly. “My son wants to challenge you for the title, though.”  
  
The grin on Luffy's aging face was familiar, comforting. “I'll see him in the Grand Line, then.”


	3. Delta (T) Luffy/Usopp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the 50 x 1 sentence challenge at 1sentence on LJ.
> 
> Originally posted Aug. 16th, 2006

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for the Luffy/Usopp fight and beyond, I guess.  
> Humor, fluff, angst, alternate reality and introspective scattered throughout the fic.
> 
> RUN ONS AND PURPLE PROSE AHOY

**#01 – Air**  
It’s been tested and proven that Luffy _still_ sinks in water even in Balloon mode, he tells her triumphantly, and she rolls her eyes at the two dripping, shivering, but still grinning idiots Zoro had to rescue, before throwing them both a towel and telling them to dry up.  
  
**#02 – Apples**  
They get an immense thrill out of tossing an apple into the air, having Usopp explode it with one of his shots, and then seeing how many mangled bits of cider they can catch in their mouths before they splatter across Nami’s sun-tanning figure nearby.  
  
**#03 – Beginning**  
Apparently, best friends started their relationship with the welcome words of, “ _I’m_ the Captain, don’t think I can’t kick your skinny ass – you wanna fight with me over it, huh, you damn punk?!”  
  
**#04 – Bugs**  
There were approximately five seconds of pure, undiluted, contemplative silence, before the sparkles went into overload and twin voices screamed in unison: _“SO COOOOOOOOL!!!!”_  
  
**#05 – Coffee**  
“Ohmygodsolike,” Luffy was babbling, eyes dilated abnormally wide, crazed grin filing the whole of his face as he gesticulated wildly and barely avoided klunking the sniper upside the head with a mug of WHAT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CAFFEINE, DAMMIT, “agullflewrightintothegalleywindowwhileSanjiwascookingandohmygodhisfacehisfaaaaaaacedidyouseehisfaceahahahahHAHAHahHAhaHA – ”  
  
**#06 – Dark**  
It’s stupid to still believe that there are monsters hiding in the closet after the lights are out and the windows drawn; stupider still when you’re trying to terrify a gullible audience with the tale and end up huddled beneath the sheets with said audience after he’s somehow managed to convince you that yes, monsters do actually exist, including the ones that you’d just made up three seconds ago.  
  
**#07 – Despair**  
“Dammit,” Luffy’s saying, and he’s faintly aware that his mask is off and that it’s strange to hear that voice tumbling so shattered and broken from his bruised, bleeding lips, because as long as he’s known him the captain has _never_ been afraid of anything, “don’t you _dare_ leave me again, and I haven’t even kicked your ass properly for the first time – dammit, Usopp, don’t – open your eyes, dammit, open them – look at me – come back, _come back, damn you,_ ” and those are the last words he registers before a warm wetness hits his face and the liar surrenders his soul to the blood-stained wind.  
  
**#08 – Doors**  
For all the laughs and cheerful faces he shows everyday, there’s a part of the captain that knows what life is like on the other side of the blades of the proverbial grass, knows the pain and fear the dark side of reality brings; it’s the only part of Luffy that Usopp can’t quite touch, locked carefully out of sight – but there _are_ times when he can sneak up to peer in through the keyhole, and it’s then his understanding of his impulsive captain deepens just a little bit more.  
  
**#09 – Drink**  
He loves the absolutely elated look the boy gets on his face when he presents him with a mug of plain honeyed water and tells him its ambrosia instead – because then Luffy gets to hear an hour’s worth of desperate situations and life-threatening booby traps and a single man fighting bare-handed against the gods of the sky for stealing their sacred drink – and the best part is that it was all for him.  
  
**#10 – Duty**  
A sniper does what a sniper does best, and so, in the face of the advancing enemy, he takes his best shot, explodes the rear of Luffy’s shorts while he’s not looking, screams that _they did it_ , then sits back and watches with satisfaction as the bodies start flying.  
  
**#11 – Earth**  
He likes scuffling over the shallow, tiny little squares the sniper’s boots leave in the fresh dirt, superimposing the hard, ridged soles of his sandals deep over the footprints, because it’s fun to watch the way the soil shifts under him, reforming into something completely different over time – into something that’s less complicated and yet so much stronger.  
  
**#12 – End**  
The only real problem with telling Luffy bedtime stories was that he usually got too worked up in his excitement to actually fall asleep after he was done reciting them, and more often than not it was the storyteller who ended up suffering the consequences of insufficient shut-eye while the other bounced in his hammock fully awake, demanding for more.  
  
**#13 – Fall**  
He knows that somehow he recovers faster than any of the crew, so he has no qualms about reversing his positions with Usopp as they fall as one into the pit, and when the sniper stares down at the stakes impaling his rubber body later, shaken but unharmed, Luffy only grins and manages to grit out a bloody gurgle of, “they’ll heal.”  
  
**#14 – Fire**  
Usopp looked at Ace, then at Luffy, then hung his head and wistfully wondered about a lot of ‘what if’s.  
  
**#15 – Flexible**  
“LUFFY, STOP MESSING AROUND WITH THAT STUPID GEAR THREE OF YOURS, AND _UNTIE THAT BALLOON DOG FROM YOUR CROTCH AT ONCE._ ”  
  
**#16 – Flying**  
The feeling is actually pretty nice, he thinks, watching as the thick forest blurs into smooth, painterly wipes of lime and celadon and viridian below him, but it’s only when the russet and filemot and other shades of disgustingly gooey brown quagmire start looming closer, that he absolutely hates Luffy for even _attempting_ to Gomu Gomu no Rocket them across a hundred acres of swamp.  
  
**#17 – Food**  
Luffy is quite possibly the only person on the ship to get the sniper to actually consume his mushrooms, because Usopp hates getting his food stolen, and in the I-can-shovel-more-food-into-my-mouth-faster-than-you-can brawls that follow, he doesn’t really notice what gets speared on his fork; there’s too much food in his mouth for him to distinguish the flavor by the end of it, anyway.  
  
**#18 – Foot**  
_Stupid rubber brat and his stupid rubber ability,_ Usopp thought wildly, desperately trying to keep from writhing too noticeably in his seat where he was positioned in-between (of all the people he could have sat with) Zoro and Robin, the bare foot beneath the table continuing to prod and toe and rub against his lower half rather inappropriately, while Luffy himself continued to eat deceptively innocently from where he was seated, a good eight feet away.  
  
**#19 – Grave**  
Luffy gives him a small, serious grin as Usopp straightens from the respectful bow, and he punches the sniper lightly on the shoulder with a sincere chirrup of, “She’d have been proud of you.”  
  
**#20 – Green**  
_Nope, the ten-foot-high-wall-of-orange-fire-inducing original Tabasco definitely produced more impressive results_ , Usopp noted absentmindedly, watching as Luffy shrieked and set Chopper’s hat aflame with a spray of miniature jalapeño-green fireballs from his mouth.  
  
**#21 – Head**  
He always keeps his hair tied down or hidden beneath the confines of his bandana – it’s messy and unmanageable, and the kids in his hometown had always called him names because of it – but when Luffy pulls off the cross-hatched cloth and buries his face in the soft, lush curls with a content sigh, he resigns himself to fate and allows his captain to continue nuzzling his scalp, unsuccessfully ignoring the hands that sneak around his waistline, and the warm press of a body against his back as the other hugs him from behind.  
  
**#22 – Hollow**  
The knuckle rap to the captain’s temple had been done in jest, but Usopp recoiled in true horror when he actually heard it ringing empty within.  
  
**#23 – Honor**  
“ _You will_ always _be my nakama._ ”  
  
**#24 - Hope**  
He spins fables, but Luffy states the unshakable truth; and when Usopp feels the press of thatched straw upon his head and the gentle squeeze of afternoon-warm fingers atop his own tear-stained ones, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, it’s possible to keep being a dreamer after all.  
  
**#25 – Light**  
It’s amusing to see how much light they can both produce from sparkling with unbridled excitement, because this means they get to temporarily blind Sanji and steal a slice of the caramel-chocolate cake he’s been working on as a snack for the girls; and when they’re at a safe distance up in the crow’s nest later, they can share it with silent, victorious grins.  
  
**#26 – Lost**  
“Oh, so you’d asked _Zoro_ for directions, and now we’re probably miles away from the nearest pee stall available and _no damn it I am NOT doing it in the bushes, close to exploding or no, because these are friggin’ GIANT VENUS FLY TRAPS AND I HAVE NO WISH TO HAVE ANY BIT OF ME INSIDE A PLANT THAT HAS FIVE-FOOT LONG JAWS THANK YOU VERY MUCH._ ”  
  
**#27 – Metal**  
“…what exactly are you doing with those handcuffs, and where or who the hell did you get them from?!”  
  
**#28 – New**  
Usopp had experienced a very tiny, subtle pang of jealously when Sanji had first joined them, because then Luffy was always in the galley begging the cook for a cut of meat or cream-filled crackers or a thick, warm drink – but all traces of envy vanished when the captain surprised him by bringing the sniper an uneaten plate of strawberries and chocolate fondue; and when Luffy had noticeably withheld himself from filching from his plate later, Usopp had smiled, and purposefully left a single chocolate-coated fruit on the plate for him to finish up as he made his way back to the mens’ quarters.  
  
**#29 – Old**  
Neither of them really cares that he’s a whole month older than his captain – seventeen is seventeen, and that’s all there is to it.  
  
**#30 – Peace**  
It’s short-lived, but the absolute contentment and calm confidence Luffy radiates while sprawled atop the sniper after one of their many vigorous chases across the ship feels like the best damn feeling in the world, and Usopp can’t help but push himself giddily up for another round of catch because he wants to relive the feeling over and over again, knowing with an absolute certainty that it’d always be freely given.  
  
**#31 – Poison**  
Barely three seconds have passed since Chopper made the official diagnosis, and Usopp has already devised twenty-seven exquisitely painful and elaborately drawn-out methods of torture for the sick bastard who’d dared to slip seastone powder into his captain’s meal.  
  
**#32 – Pretty**  
“Yeah,” Luffy said, his face blank as he gazed down at the photo of a lovely, smiling blond in his hand, “she’s really pretty.”  
  
**#33 – Rain**  
“I like the rain,” Luffy had said, quietly, unmoving from his sprawled position on his back on the ground while Usopp fussed agitatedly above him, equally drenched and trying to shelter them both with a rickety, torn umbrella, “because it’s the only body of water I know I won’t drown in.”  
  
**#34 – Regret**  
The decision hurts like hell, but it’s a man’s fight, and they instinctively know that the other won’t call off the challenge – even if it’s the only thing they really want to do right now.  
  
**#35 – Roses**  
He probably wouldn’t even notice they’d been removed, but Usopp clips all the thorns off the rose stems anyway before passing Luffy the small bouquet Nami’s asked them to place in her vase; the captain does note his bloody fingers though, and the sniper has to force himself not to blush when the other begins to “kiss them all better”.  
  
**#36 – Secret**  
Usopp wonders, but never makes known the thought, of what it’d be like to never be afraid of anything, because then maybe he wouldn’t be such a coward; then he wonders with a sort of guilt if someday Luffy’s inability to be daunted by anything might someday develop into over-confidence, and ultimately become his downfall; and he stops worrying so much and focuses on making himself the rubberman’s voice of reason instead.  
  
**#37 - Snakes**  
The Great Captain Usopp Hand Shadow released a loud wail of terror as The Giant Skypiean Snake That Was Actually Luffy’s Hand Shadow opened its mouth wide, waggled a finger-tongue in evil glee, then consumed The Great Captain Usopp Hand Shadow whole.  
  
**#38 – Snow**  
Never try to attack someone who can Gomu Gomu no Multi-Snowball Projectile you.  
  
**#39 – Solid**  
For someone who’s made of rubber, he feels incredibly hard.  
  
**#40 – Spring**  
“Traitor,” Luffy whines from where he’s gotten bits of himself stuck in about sixty different mouse-traps previously set near the refrigerator, and Usopp can only shrug and try to look apologetic before reaching past the boy for the last slice of his own birthday cake.  
  
**#41 – Stable**  
Luffy doesn’t get broken bones, but Usopp can, and inside he’s silently grateful that the rubber boy isn’t shooting off questions about what a splintered shin feels like, instead wrapping a supportive arm about his shoulders and helping them both back to the ship without another word.  
  
**#42 – Strange**  
Luffy’s love is for everyone – he doesn’t give a damn whether it’s a boy or a girl who’s the object of his affections.  
  
**#43 – Summer**  
It’s too hot to bother with clothes and neither of them have any problems with running around on deck completely naked; at any rate, until Robin calmly informs them that sunburns _down there_ might impair certain abilities that they might need to use in future, and only then do they at least don underwear.  
  
**#44 – Taboo**  
It’s an unspoken compromise between them that they don’t talk about what will happen when everything is finally over – when Usopp has to return to Kaya and Luffy his promise to Shanks.  
  
**#45 – Ugly**  
“Eye of the beholder,” Luffy grins, and he mashes his lips to the tip of the sniper’s nose before Usopp gets a chance to ask where the hell the dumbass learnt philosophic shit like that.  
  
**#46 – War**  
He barely makes it to the sink before he’s throwing up, a sour, bitter scorch of gastric acid and bile and blood while unshed tears sting his eyes, when he reflects back and realizes with a sick twist of horror that as soon as Luffy hadn’t risen from his fall for a long while, he was actually hoping that he’d nailed the bastard dead.  
  
**#47 – Water**  
Usopp couldn’t stop shivering, fingers numbly fisted in the captain’s soaked vest as he clutched the precious straw hat to his chest with his other hand, his only thought in that panicked moment that Luffy was too goddamn limp for his liking.  
  
**#48 – Welcome**  
It hurts, but it’s a good pain, the kind that comes from rubbing firmly on a tender but fading bruise, and they’re crying so hard into each others’ shoulders, fingers desperately gripping, holding each other tight because the distance between them is finally closed, dissipated; grasping and sobbing and pulling the other closer until there’s nothing but warmth and love that’s deep and impenetrable, the thunder of aching, healing hearts in their ears, and mingled tears running down their faces to die forgiven in the soil beneath them.  
  
**#49 – Winter**  
The captain latches onto him the moment his head makes it over the top of the crow’s nest, like a damn leech, teeth chattering a rapid staccato; and Usopp makes a great deal out of grumbling and rolling his eyes, before pushing him off and tossing the forgetful idiot his gloves, ear muffs and checkered snow parka.  
  
**#50 - Wood**  
“Vivi had to leave us, too, before Robin could join,” Luffy said, smiling the faded smile of recalling good times past, keeping their fingers entwined as he pressed their palms against the unfamiliar walls of their new ship; Usopp squeezed his captain’s hand a little tighter, offering him a small, genuine smile of gratitude, because he knows that none of them will ever forget the princess, and neither will they forget the faithful little caravel that had brought them together this far.


	4. Beware the Sadist Fools (PG) Lu/Uso/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Sun
> 
> Lots and lots of stupid, but that's to be expected of this pairing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's really more of a Luffy/Usopp/Chopper but who's checking

So it was a warm, summer’s morning onboard the Going Merry, with nary a cloud in sight, and the sun beamed down upon the little caravel with enough force to make it spontaneously combust.  
  
“GOT ANOTHER ONE!” Luffy roared, as another ant fried to a crispy death beneath his spy-glass, little grey smoke trails twining up into the air as it burned into non-existence.  
  
Usopp hit him across the head. “Oi! If Merry catches fire, I’ll kill you!”  
  
“But that’s mutiny!”  
  
“I don’t care! You harm my precious ship, and I’m going to kick your rubber ass so hard, you’d be feeling it until next year!”  
  
Another small fire erupted some feet away, swiftly dwindling down into ash. Chopper cheered. “GOT ANOTHER ONE!”  
  
“WOO HOO!”  
  
“Chopper?! Why are _you_ frying ants with Luffy?!”  
  
“Well…”  
  
“Sanji made us do it,” Luffy informed the sniper, proudly, thrusting his bare chest forward as emphasis – the temperature was intolerable and most of the male crew had taken to stripping nearly naked. “He bought some fruit from the last market we stopped at, and when he opened the package, it’d gone bad; it was full of insects and he started screaming, and somehow they got out all over the deck so he told us to hunt them down.”  
  
Usopp smacked his own forehead. “You can’t chase them down like that! T-there’s got to be hundreds – no, thousands – wait, MILLIONS – of the things crawling about the ship! You can’t possibly burn all of them to death like that, and it’s not tragic enough a torturous death.”  
  
Chopper paused in his frying, eyes wide. “Eh?”  
  
“They’re _vermin_ ,” Usopp hissed, eyes darting about periodically as though he might be overheard, “scum of the earth. Do you know why they aren’t pestering Sanji’s foodstocks anymore? It’s because they’ve moved on to bigger prey. Like _you!_ ” – and he shot a finger at Chopper, who shrieked – “and _you!_ ” – he snarled, taking a stab at Luffy, who wind-milled frantically backwards to avoid getting poked – “and everyone and everything they can get their _filthy little jaws on!_ ”  
  
“W-what should we do!?” Chopper cried.  
  
“I’ll kick their asses!” Luffy yelled, outraged.  
  
“Hmph.” The sniper straightened, flicked his nose with an important thumb. “Simple-minded beings such as you two cannot possibly comprehend the marvelous ways of my working mind. _I_ have a plan.”  
  
“Really?!” Chopper gasped.  
  
“Tell us!”  
  
“Usopp-samaaaaaa!”  
  
The sniper motioned them closer. “’tis top-secret hush-hush material, _mon ami_. Gather round. And make sure absolutely no one knows about this.”  
  
The hours rolled by quickly, and soon the sky was a blinding stretch of afternoon-white, merciless heat-waves pounding upon the weathered wood deck like a sky storm. It grew too hot to walk about barefoot, as the captain had learnt when he ran outside for a brief kitchen raid, only to come back into the shade dancing about from foot to burnt foot and screaming like a banshee.  
  
The sweltering weather, however, was deemed the most perfect condition for implementing the Great Captain Usopp-sama’s Extermination Plan, and the trio trudged reluctantly out into the hot sun, clad in nothing but sandals and waist wraps and lugging a large, covered contraption behind them. Thankfully, it didn’t take too long to set up, and by five minutes, the plan was ready to be executed.  
  
It looked like a very odd, very misshapen sort of catapulting device, save for the fact that there was a “basin” for their victims to be deposited in (the edges had been lined with Vaseline, so that they couldn’t crawl back out), with several sets of magnifying glasses (fifteen, to be precise) that had been painstakingly arranged over each other in succession, each facing a random direction, as of yet unaligned.  
  
“See,” Usopp explained, as Chopper dumped the last batch of captured insects into the now-filled wooden basin, “instead of frying them one by one, you put them all together so that they form this huge, giant bonfire orgy thing where they simultaneously go up in flames and writhe in hell together. It looks more impressive, and, if you want to be kind, at least they aren’t dying a lonely death.”  
  
“Awesome.” Luffy sparkled. “Usopp, you’re so cool!”  
  
“Of course.” The sniper preened.  
  
Chopper scurried to where they were standing in the shade, a good five feet behind the device. “I’m done! Now what?”  
  
“We celebrate our victory prematurely.” Usopp dug out his slingshot from within the folds of his waist wrap, pulled his goggles over his eyes, and took aim at the very first of the magnifying lenses in sequence. He fired.  
  
It hit the rim of the first lens. The magnifying glass swung slowly around, locking into place with a little click that apparently set off some kind of rigging. The trio watched, with escalating awe, as the entire line of magnifying lenses began pivoting, each snapping into place with little clicks and trembles, until the result was a very long, straight, perfect alignment that focused an oval spotlight right into the heart of the squirming, writhing mass of hundreds of insect bodies.  
  
Chopper sucked in a slow, deep breath.  
  
Luffy was already beginning to hyperventilate where he stood, fists clenched tight with anticipation.  
  
“Wait for it…”  
  
It was like tossing a torch into a gas-filled arena. The center of the mass suddenly ignited, and the entire basin went up in flames; the roar of the fire screaming like several phoenixes having synchronized orgasms as ribbons of white and gamboge and vermilion, saffron and vitellary shot up high into the air.  
  
“AWESOMMMME,” Luffy shrieked, sounding almost as if he was having an orgasm himself; beside him Chopper’s eyes were shining comets, jaw hanging slack, completely and utterly speechless.  
  
“Mission accomplished, boys; well done.” Usopp slapped them all on the back with hearty, resounding thumps, grinning, and he didn’t really protest when the captain grabbed them both to do a stupid sort of native dance around the bonfire.  
  
Ten minutes later, the insects were completely gone, the fire still hadn’t died out, and its flames were beginning to greedily consume the wooden contraption that had spawned it as well. The trio watched, with a sense of impending doom, as the first tongue of fire gave an eager lick at the boards under their feet.  
  
Usopp hissed between his teeth. “Oh – ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2016 AN: Now that I'm re-reading this I guess it's a little OOC of Chopper to be harming innocent insects, but eh


	5. Dear Friends (T) Luffy/Usopp

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for the Luffy VS Usopp arc and the appearance of Sogeking.  
> Inspired by the ED, "Dear Friends", of course. 
> 
> Originally posted: Jun. 8th, 2006

Actions speak louder than words, and the words sit calm and peaceful in the back of his mind as the two of them do nothing but breathe, sprawled over each other, recovering from an exhausting game of tag. Luffy has his ear over the sniper’s gradually slowing heart, arms wrapped snugly around the other, and they both bask in the happy peace.   
  
There’s no amused, childlike laughter from the rubber captain, no loud, excited comments – just simple, quiet companionship. The nosiest members of their little crew of seven are completely silent, and when Usopp shifts and opens his mouth to say something at last, Luffy raises his head – and he finds himself at a loss for words by the sheer emotion in those large, unwavering eyes. The captain is smiling – not grinning, not chuckling, not laughing – just smiling down at him with that honest upturn of lips and eyes that hide nothing and he feels like he could drown from the sheer amount of love and happiness that’s being given out so freely.   
  
“I love you.” The silence is broken at last by words that are spoken truly, simply, firmly. Usopp knows better than to look deeper into the words – Luffy’s always loved all of them, and he doesn’t always declare it because it’s a fact that barely needs to be restated. But Luffy says it anyway, and with one last lingering squeeze, withdraws his arms, gets up, and runs off, laughing delightedly, in that carefree manner no one else can quite understand.  
  
Usopp chases after him, grinning like a fool, and he’s not surprised that the laughter bubbling from his own mouth sounds almost startlingly similar to the other boy’s.   
  


_x x x x x x x x x x_

  
  
Actions speak louder than words, and for once Luffy isn’t yelling the names of his attacks, fighting with that rare, deadly serious look on his face. The only time he’s seen that look on the captain was when he was facing off against Kuro, or Don Krieg or Arlong or Wapol or Crocodile – it’s a dangerous emotion that Luffy allows to surface only when fighting the biggest threats to his crew. That expression of utmost rage and desperation and unbreakable determination shouldn’t have been there. Luffy was only fighting him, after all.   
  
Every blow they land on each other, there’s second wave, a recoil, something else inside them that’s rejecting the damage they’re inflicting on each other and in turn dealing it back to themselves. It’s painful and it hurts but he won’t give up, and neither will the captain – until the impact of a solid, clenched fist lands a shattering blow straight to his midsection. Usopp’s body gives way under the blow, and he doesn’t rise no matter how much his mind protests the action.  
  
“A person like you can never defeat me.” The silence is broken at last by words that are spoken truly, simply, firmly. Usopp can’t see the tears, but he knows that Luffy’s crying, even as the boy tugs the straw hat low over his face and walks, almost robot-like, back to the ship that’s now solely his own. He doesn’t snap out of his daze until he hears that horribly solemn voice bid him farewell, doesn’t stop sobbing and shaking with the gut-wrenching hollowness that’s suddenly clawed its way inside of him, and he doesn’t stop telling himself that it was all going to work out for the better in the end.   
  
He knows a lie when he hears one, and besides, he’d never expected to win, anyway.   
  


_x x x x x x x x x x_

  
  
Actions speak louder than words, and all the prepared speeches he’d had in mind, the planned apologies and words he’d intended on making heard, shrivel up and die as Luffy finally looks up and meets his gaze directly. The young man’s jaw is set, mouth in a small frown, his brows knit together at the center and it feels like his eyes can bore straight into the core of the liar’s soul.  
  
He can’t move, can’t speak as Luffy silently reaches up with a hand that’s been bloodied from battle, hooks his fingers into the wooden mask and pulls it off without any thought or hesitation. Usopp averts his gaze then, afraid of what he’s going to find in those eyes that speak so much without needing to say anything – and he yelps, leaping back, as Luffy single-handedly splinters the mask in front of his face.   
  
He can imagine the fury swirling dark and angry behind those eyes and he freezes to the spot, terrified, as the captain closes the distance between him, mouth in a grim line. Luffy bares his teeth and raises a fist, pulling back hard –   
  
\- and reaches out to crush the other’s body to his, arms wrapped so tight around him he can’t breathe; but there’s a racing, furious heartbeat thumping against him, and a dark head buried into the hollow between his neck and shoulder, arms squeezing and holding and not showing any sign of letting go anytime soon.  
  
There are no words this time, nothing to be exchanged – just the desperate clutching at his back and the insistent, resolute press of a forgiving body against his. Usopp clutches back, just as frantic, and they’re hugging themselves to each other as though they’d never see each other again.  
  
He opens his mouth at last to break the silence, to apologize, and Luffy snarls, “I don’t want to hear it.” before a hand reaches up and cradles their heads close, presses both their cheeks together in a fierce, protective nuzzle. And something’s dislodged from both their hearts to begin bleeding freely again, and they’re both just crying and hugging and holding on, never uttering a single sound.   
  
Action speaks louder than words, and when Luffy finally pulls back to flash him a huge, tear-stained grin, Usopp can't help but return the same.


	6. Fairytales (T) Luffy/Usopp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And they lived happily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mentions of gore. Angst liek woah.

It’s easy to make up fairytales. They are what they are, after all: exaggerated abstracts of real life tragedies, words twisted to form happy endings that would otherwise never have existed.  
  
He keeps a worn, yellowed, dog-eared notebook of all his stories - furtively stashed somewhere underneath his extra clothes and assorted gadgetry - and he takes it out to write in all the tales he’s ever made up: his dreams, his fears, his experiences, his nightmares. The scrawled ink stares back at him, bold, accusing black against the faded blue lines of the writing paper. Some are printed neatly, while others are illegible; scribbled in haste, in anger, in terror.   
  
Tonight, the words flow steady, even, but forced. The nib of the quill leaves deep gouges in the frail paper as he writes, knuckles tight about the shaft of the large feather in his hand, face carefully blank, the notepad propped up on his knees as he curls up in a corner of the crow’s nest.   
  
He writes about the fight they had today, when thirty Marines had boarded their little caravel of seven. How easy it’d been to fire a harpoon through the captain’s heart. The way the sharp metal had pierced through the back of his red vest, nailed him three feet off the ground next to the galley door like an note pinned to a tree, just as the cook had emerged with drinks for the ladies. The way everything had spiraled into rage, chaos, blind terror and anger; the killing, the screams, the blood.   
  
The nib scratches slowly across the paper as he details every minute of the fight. The way the field of arms had sprung up from the wooden walls to disarm the enemy, before they vanished in a spray of blood-stained petals as a slice of metal sang, as Robin staggered across the deck, hugging the stumps of her arms to her chest before she collapsed. Zoro roaring, sending Marines flying as he drew all three swords, before he found himself backed against a corner with no where to move and one of his opponents used his own momentum against him, shoved his swords through his own eyes.  
  
Sanji throwing himself and the navigator to the ground, flinging them both out of harm’s way as a bullet whistled past, before he coughs up blood into her face, eyes wide, staring at a sword that’s just skewered them both to the floor.  
  
How Chopper had toppled overboard when one of his wild swings missed and sent him tumbling over the edge of the ship, the way he’d disappeared under the waves without so much as a flounder, never to resurface. How the sniper had screamed for the doctor in vain until he realized too late that they’d set the Mast on fire, the way it was all around him, flames so high and thick and blinding he had no where to go except burn to his own death, except that he still had a long way to go from dying and he could still hear the way they cheered and laughed below deck while crimson dribbled out from the corners of his eyes, watching as his own skin bubbled off, melting.   
  
“That’s not what happened.”  
  
Luffy has his arms crossed on the edge of the nest, frowning disapprovingly at the notepad in his hands. To his credit, Usopp doesn’t flinch.   
  
“It could have.”  
  
“But it didn’t.” The captain pulls himself up with difficulty, tumbles in to slump against his friend’s side. His chest is bare save for the thick swath of bandages that begins just under his arms, ending somewhere below his diaphragm, and Luffy has to struggle to breathe for a bit before he flashes his trademark uncaring grin at the sniper. “And we’re all okay now.”  
  
‘Okay’ is an understatement. He’s seen the rest of the crew, and he knows the gashes next to Zoro’s eyes will take weeks to heal before he can even see properly; that Sanji will still need that blood transfusion upon reaching the next island, because it’d taken far too long for the bullet in his gut to get extracted and his condition was barely stable as it was currently; that Robin’s arms will be in slings for at least half a month. Nami and Chopper had done all they could to help the injured crew members, but they had to rest, too, and the last the sharpshooter saw of them, they had fallen asleep hugging each other, tear tracks drying on their cheeks.  
  
He doesn’t notice the fingers wrapped around his own until Luffy holds up their entwined hands to his face. The bandages of his burnt hands shine white in the moonlight, like bone.   
  
Luffy laughs, but abruptly chokes off in a stuttering cough that has him spitting up pink, frothy blood into his free hand. Usopp pulls the shuddering boy to his chest, holding the other steady until the fit of coughing has passed and the captain is breathing freely again. He sags in the sniper’s arms.   
  
“Hey, Usopp?” Luffy says, weakly. “Tell me a story? A happy one.”  
  
Usopp strokes his hair gently, and starts telling him a lie.


	7. Boys Don't Kiss (PG) Lu/Uso/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They just don't. 'cos it gives you cooties and all.
> 
> #001 Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ficlets that were written for ot3_100 on LJ.  
> Mostly fluff and dumbassery.
> 
> I never made it to 100, of course, but here's what got written.

Luffy thinks it’s gross and that he can get cooties from it. Usopp goes red in the face and says that kisses are the stuff girls do, and since both are them are manly men, no, they do not kiss.  
  
Chopper’s never kissed. He’s _been_ kissed, of course, by various women who found him too adorable to resist and had planted their lips on his forehead before he could protest. But he’s never given one; he’d imagined if he ever kissed anyone, it would be with terrible embarrassment burning behind his cheeks, squirming and writhing like a worm on a hook in its death throes.  
  
It happened by accident. They’d been chasing each other across the ship as usual, and they’d sort of tripped and fallen and tangled with each other, high from adrenaline and laughing too hard to really care. Luffy had collapsed atop the sniper and accidentally wound up pressing his lips to Usopp’s cheek instead. They all froze.  
  
Chopper’s eyes were wide from where he lay smooshed between the older two. Usopp looked ready to die. Luffy pulled back quickly after a few stunned moments, face a rare shade of discomfiture. But then he leant in and did it again – quicker this time – a sort of tentative boyish peck.  
  
“W-what the hell are you doing?” Usopp managed at last, lying quite still, body completely tensed.  
  
“Dunno,” Luffy said, and then he kissed the reindeer on the nose.  
  
Chopper shrieked instantly, springing up to leap away. “DON’T KISS ME, ASSHOLE, IT DOESN’T MAKE ME HAPPY AND I _DON’T LIKE IT AT ALL_.”  
  
And then he screamed some more as Luffy’s grin grew demonically wide at his reaction, before they were off and chasing each other again: Chopper screeching frantically at the top of his lungs while the Captain ran after him with lips in Gomu Gomu no Pucker-Up mode, and Usopp, who had since decided that provoking a response out of him was more interesting than contemplating if cooties were contagious between the same gender.  
  
They ended up getting beaten into the floorboards before anything _really_ happened, though – courtesy of their navigator, who’d grown irritated with the constant fire of footsteps above her cabin. _Oh well_ , Chopper thought, somewhat relieved, while his crewmates groaned in agony beneath him.


	8. Sensory Broth (G) Lu/Uso/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 003\. Touch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ficlets that were written for ot3_100 on LJ.  
> Mostly fluff and dumbassery.
> 
> I never made it to 100, of course, but here's what got written.

His hooves are like stone, cold and unfeeling; but they seem softer whenever they're coaxing off old bandages, or cleaning blood away from a ragged wound. As a human, his hands are strong enough to brittle steel into dust, but never have they been used for violence - except to protect the people who've recognized and accepted him. If blood coats his fingers, it's either because he's saving or defending, but never attacking.  
  
_His_ fingers are long, dexterous - slender like a poet's and as supple as willow. Still, as agile as he might be with them, he moves hesitantly. A light, hurried tap to the shoulder blade if he seeks attention; dealing mischievous punches that have more strength withheld than necessary. Nevertheless, those same hands – always timid and mild – can also work a cannon with near-ridiculous ease, and juggle pistols whilst simultaneously firing off shots that hit all their targets dead on.  
  
_His_ hands are large, awkward; childishly klutzy like the rest of him, knuckles calloused and enlarged from constant, reckless fighting. Blood has stained them far too many times – both his own and others' – yet for all his feral brutality, his touches are the most tender. They've caressed tear-stained cheeks, wiped off sorrow; chased off fears with a firm hand atop the straw on their heads. His hands are rarely fisted, open like the pureness of his heart; and when he slings an arm around your neck and laughs with you, his entire being sings with true joy.  
  
But it's when their fingers are interwoven that the three become nearly indistinguishable. Beneath the innocence, the meekness, and the courage that holds them all together, runs the essence of their very natures – their unconditional love.  
  
It was how she found them later, sprawled out in the evening sun, snoring in a heap with the captain's strong hands encompassing theirs. Robin sprouted a chain of arms from the floor, and gently returned her sleeping crewmates below deck. _An odd trio they made,_ she mused, smiling lightly, _but one that worked nevertheless._


	9. Sometimes (G) Lu/Uso/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #010 Dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ficlets that were written for ot3_100 on LJ.  
> Mostly fluff and dumbassery.

Sometimes Chopper wakes up early. Sanji will be cooking, and Zoro is already on deck; he can hear the clank of steady weights harmonizing with the waves against the hull. Sometimes Luffy is also up, and he’s either trying to wriggle a snack out of Sanji, or he’s already sitting on the figurehead.  
  
Sometimes Chopper wakes up early and he sees the captain dangling his legs over his hammock. Luffy has gorgeous bed hair. It makes him wilder and messier than he already usually is. But when he’s sitting there like that and not looking at anything, quiet, just touching the tips of his fingers to his left shoulder, Luffy looks… not Luffy. At least until he pulls himself out of bed, sees Chopper watching, and smiles the smile he sees Nami give Sanji sometimes, when he asks a question she can’t really answer without injuring him in return.  
  
Sometimes Usopp sleeps in, as well. Sometimes, Usopp doesn’t do anything but watch as his captain bolts awake and immediately makes a frenzied grab for his hat, before collapsing back, unmoving. When Luffy hasn’t stirred for a long while the sniper bounces over and pokes at him, stretches his rubber cheeks; makes up tales so ludicrous until laughter breaks the silence, chases the distant look away.  
  
Then they both look over at Chopper, and he’s not sure who learned the grin from whom - they’re mutually blinding.  
  
“FOOD!” Luffy cheers, before they slip and fall and swear and step on each other’s faces trying to simultaneously wrestle their way up the mast. Chopper only sighs and packs his medical kit and hopes he gets to the galley before Sanji starts beating them all up.


	10. Glass Eyes (PG) Lu/Uso/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not everything can be saved.
> 
> #016 Loss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ficlets that were written for ot3_100 on LJ.  
> Mostly fluff and dumbassery.
> 
> Warning for animal death.

They’d found the kitten in the back alley of a crowded marketplace, nearly buried beneath a mountain of litter, its once-pure fur matted in crusted clumps and sticky with black oil and dirt. It hadn’t been moving when they’d discovered it, and even now, as Chopper worked on washing it thoroughly with a pail of warm sudsy water, huge hands cradling its limp form, it merely stared up at them, almost lifeless, chest heaving weakly as the doctor’s fingers worked through its fur.  
  
“Oi, Luffy, do something,” Usopp hissed over his shoulder at where the youth had positioned himself on the edge of a barrel outside the bathroom door, arms crossed, face resolutely blank. The sniper’s eyes flicked once back to Chopper, then back to Luffy again. “It’s not responding to anything we do – Chopper’s getting desperate - ”  
  
His whispers weren’t that soft to be drowned out by the churn of soapy water. Chopper set his mouth, gently but firmly began scrubbing at the grit behind the kitten’s ears.  
  
“Don’t just sit there, bastard,” Usopp was saying, even as he distractedly passed a bath towel over to the reindeer, “Help us or something – ”  
  
“It’s okay.” Chopper didn’t look back, continued toweling the kitten dry. It had white fur, he noted, soft as a baby bird’s feathery down and clean as the purest butter.  
  
The doctor finished, carried it out to where Luffy remained perched on his post and knelt in the middle of the floor, careful to keep its body from jarring. The kitten continued to stare vacantly up at them, and Usopp gave a startled jerk.  
  
“It’s dead,” he said.  
  
Chopper nodded, still kneeling, face grave. “Right after I finished drying it off,” he said. “It wasn’t going to survive, anyway.”  
  
“Then why…”  
  
“At least it died,” Chopper’s head was bowed, “knowing it wasn’t alone and unloved.”  
  
Usopp said nothing for a few moments, before he hesitantly walked forward, knelt next to the reindeer, and slung a comforting arm around the larger’s shaking shoulders.  
  
Luffy slipped silently off the barrel, laid a hand across the kitten’s still warm form, and slowly, respectfully, slid young eyes of azure shut.


	11. This was Uncalled For (PG) Lu/Uso/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, dumbassery carries over into unconscious thought.
> 
> 033 Bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ficlets that were written for ot3_100 on LJ.  
> Mostly fluff and dumbassery.

It started with Luffy’s head falling out of his hammock. Muscles lax in sleep, the rubberman’s head had dropped the four feet between them to land heavily against Usopp’s chest, neck stretching obscenely across the distance. The sniper had nearly died of a heart attack when he awoke to his captain’s head in his face with the rest of his body nowhere in sight.  
  
He was still adjusting to the oddness of the whole situation when Luffy began _slipping_ over the edge of his hammock, like he was soup being poured; body practically oozing out to puddle atop his chest like wet noodle. Still snoring, still drooling wet noodle. His legs fell off last, and now that Luffy was entirely inside the sniper’s personal space, he wound himself about the other’s body, and let out a rumble like a constipated rhinoceros right into his ear.  
  
Usopp was about to punch the obviously-pretending-to-be-asleep moron in the face and tell him to get the hell back in his own hammock when Chopper came rolling across the floor. He emerged from the shadows of the room like an unsecured water barrel, twelve feet away from where he’d fallen asleep at his study desk, leisurely tumbling across the rug where Zoro and Sanji were sprawled out upon.  
  
Chopper slowed to a stop when he reached the hammocks. The reindeer went Heavy Point then, both eyes still closed and a convincing trail of drool glistening at the corner of his mouth, shrinking as he clambered in alongside Luffy. The doctor promptly plastered himself to the sniper’s unoccupied side with what was a rather evident nuzzle, before contributing to the existing symphony of one with his own roars.  
  
“Alright, _now_ I know you’re faking!” Usopp raised an irate leg to kick both the idiots out, but Luffy casually raised a free arm and literally lassoed the sniper into immobility, his arm stretching several times around the trio and the hammock itself before coming to rest in the sniper’s hair. Beside him Chopper squirmed even closer, face nearly buried in the fabric of his nightclothes, and he gave a soft giggle.  
  
They were _smiling_. Bastards.  
  
Usopp grumbled to himself, and tried to tune out the muffled laughs on either side of him as he settled back to sleep. He wasn’t _that_ warm that they all had to share a hammock, and the night wasn’t even cold, dammit.


	12. Name-Calling (PG) Lu/Uso/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not everyone likes terms of endearment. Especially if they're really horridly endeared. 
> 
> #017 Petnames

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ficlets that were written for ot3_100 on LJ.  
> Mostly fluff and dumbassery.

Luffy leaned over, slow and conspicuous, till his lips brushed Chopper’s ear. “Racoon,” he muttered out the side of his mouth.  
  
Chopper twitched once, but kept his eyes firmly glued to the textbook he was reading.  
  
Usopp leant over too, seated on the reindeer’s other side, and his voice hissed out low and urgent. “Bear.”  
  
More violent twitches, but the doctor kept on reading, determined to ignore them. The two boys exchanged raised eyebrows behind the other’s back, before setting themselves back to the task at hand with devious grins.  
  
“Deer.”  
  
“Floofer.”  
  
“Furball.”  
  
“Spongeball.”  
  
“Meatball.”  
  
“Emergency food supply.”  
  
“Choppyyyyyy.”  
  
“Brown Marim - ”  
  
_“I’M A REINDEER!”_ Chopper exploded at last, and the captain and the sniper screeched with laughter as he threw his book to the side, went Heavy Point, and stomped furiously after them with huge outstretched arms.  
  
“You,” he huffed later, whilst angrily stamping band-aids to both his crewmates’ foreheads and shoulders where they were bruised and swollen purple, “are not to give me nicknames. _Especially_ ones as ridiculous as those.”  
  
They whined at him. “But nicknames make you _special_ ,” Usopp pressed.  
  
“Yeah,” the captain agreed vigorously, “like how I know Nami and Sanji and the others like me because they call me stuff like ‘shitty rubber brat’ and ‘stupid annoying monkey’.”  
  
“Um, Luffy, those aren’t…”  
  
Usopp trailed off when he noticed Chopper’s lower lip wibbling.  
  
“T-they…” The doctor drew a shuddering breath. “They used… to call me nicknames… but they hated me.”  
  
The elder two sat back on their heels in unison, faces suddenly solemn. But then Luffy reached forward again, and knuckled the reindeer’s top hat. “They’re not us,” he grinned at him, “and you know we love you.”  
  
Chopper squirmed, hooves scrubbing away the tears in his eyes. “Bastard, your words don’t make me happy!”  
  
“You fail at lying,” Usopp said, smugly, before he tagged the reindeer into a random game of ‘It’, and the three scrambled out the mens’ quarters laughing themselves high.


	13. Crayons and Markers (PG) Lu/Uso/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you can't fix something, make it irreparable.
> 
> #034 Pictures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ficlets that were written for ot3_100 on LJ.  
> Mostly fluff and dumbassery.

A pencil embedded itself point-end first into the floor, quivering by Luffy's feet just as he and Chopper strolled into the galley.  
  
Luffy yelped. "Watch where you throw that!" he yelled, flinging the pencil back so it bounced off the top of the sniper's bandana and ensnared itself in his wiry hair.  
  
Usopp paid him no attention, furiously chucking a wad of paper over his shoulder. It sailed across the galley and neatly crashed itself in a half-full bin of similarly crushed papers.  
  
"Stupid art slump..." the sniper moaned.  
  
Chopper rifled through the bin, pulled out a random wad and eased out its crinkles. It held a sketch of Sanji, captured in the act of cooking. The pencil strokes were hasty, swift, an embarrassed snapshot of an unwary target.  
  
"So cool!" Chopper sparkled with amazement.  
  
"Yeah," Luffy breathed, "I didn't know Sanji's head could get that big whenever he cooks!"  
  
Usopp punched him into the wall. "Idiot, that's what I've been saying! I can't draw at all today! They're all out of proportion, and icky and crappy and... and stupid and... and argh."  
  
The sniper melted back into a sitting position, propped his chin in both palms, and sighed pitifully.  
  
Luffy laughed as he relieved the sketch from the reindeer's hooves, plucking the pencil out of Usopp's hair as he plonked himself on his belly. He began adding onto the picture.  
  
Chopper latched onto Luffy's head, trying to see, but the rubberman only blocked his vision. Usopp furrowed his eyebrows. "Oi, what exactly are you - "  
  
"Done!"  
  
Luffy shoved the drawing in the sniper's face, beaming widely - and Usopp barely avoiding spraying saliva all over it as he did a double-take. _"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT OH MY GOD!!"_ And he couldn't stop laughing.  
  
"Lemme see lemme see lemme see!" Chopper snatched the paper away from Luffy, took one look, and exploded alongside Usopp where he was convulsing on the floor, too choked up from laughter to speak. The captain joined them soon after.  
  
"LET'S DO ANOTHER ONE!" Luffy screamed some five minutes later.  
  
"OKAY!" they screamed back.  
  
"NAMI, DO YOU HAVE A PICTURE OF NAMI?!"  
  
"OR ZORO!"  
  
_"OHMYGODYES DO ZORO!!"_  
  
"OKAY!!"  
  
The roars and shrieks and squeals emitted from the galley lasted for a good three hours past lunchtime.  
  
*****  
  
At half-past five that same evening, the bellows of an irate young blond upon discovering his redecorated refrigerator could be heard for miles around the Grand Line.  
  
"WHY THE _FUCK_ DO I HAVE A - WHY IS MY - WHAT THE _HELL_ HAPPENED TO NAMI-SAN, AND _WHAT THE FUCK IS ZORO DOING TO HIS_ \- WHY IS THERE - THAT _DEFINITELY_ DOESN'T BELONG ON - WHAT - _FUCKING_ \- LUFFY! USOPP! CHOPPER! I'M GOING TO _KILLLLL YOOOOOOOUUUUUU!!_ "


	14. Blind Mice (G) Lu/Uso/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shut the windows of a person's soul, and judge his character from there.
> 
> #036 Senses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ficlets that were written for ot3_100 on LJ.  
> Mostly fluff and dumbassery.

Chopper loved playing Blind Mice. One of them would be blindfolded, and it was that crewmember’s job to find and catch the other two while they hid onboard the ship, his only given clues being the noises they made and, in his case, their scent. Chopper had a strong nose, and more often than not he ended up the fastest winner for their games; a fact that neither of them minded very much, considering more time left over meant more rounds could be squeezed in.  
  
Usopp was second best at the game. Having played it countless times with his former pirate crew, and too many times with Luffy before the reindeer had came along, he considered himself a professional. Unable to use his eyes, the sniper relied heavily on his acute listening and uncanny reflexes. Usopp could hear anything moving, if the surroundings were quiet enough: a soft inhalation, if he passed by too near a hiding spot, the tiptoe of sandaled feet heading in the opposite direction; could tell if it was Zoro slumbering quietly in the corner or if one of them were passing off as him, if it was Sanji making his rounds or hooves tapping past. The slightest sound within his vicinity, and his arms would lash out, spider-quick like lightning, before he tickled his victim into hysterics.  
  
Luffy wasn’t too great at the game, though – he had a tendency to keep going over the railings, falling from the aft, walking up the figurehead and then off it – half the games with him involved a ludicrous amount of saving over playing. Nevertheless, the rare times he succeeded in staying onboard yielded surprising results: Luffy almost always found them immediately, with a precision that rivaled Usopp’s shooting skills and with hardly any delays. The captain moved based on gut instinct and natural talent, knowing for sure that Chopper would always pick the smallest corners to squeeze into or find another crewmember for refuge; that Usopp would be either up in the crow’s nest or someplace else that was terribly difficult to reach or locate.  
  
When they accused him of cheating, however, he’d merely laughed, blamed it on luck, and cheerfully slapped the blindfold to somebody else. They never found out how he did it, but it didn’t matter, really – as long as they had fun together.


	15. Shellfish (G) Lu/Uso/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Always make sure your food is thoroughly cooked before you eat it.
> 
> #047. Shiver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ficlets that were written for ot3_100 on LJ.  
> Mostly fluff and dumbassery.

Luffy’s hands tightened against the counter, and Usopp looked away as the rubberman vomited into the sink again. They were loud, painful noises, and every time Luffy heaved it was almost as if he was forcing himself into it. Usopp had to keep one hand on the captain’s back, the other holding back his messy fringe while he gagged.  
  
Chopper was standing to the side, looking quite angry, a ready glass of lukewarm water in hand. The little doctor spared no thoughts for the sick captain’s condition as he launched into yet another medicinal ramble.  
  
“…naturally occurring bacteria found in most oysters and clams, known as _Vibrio parahaemolyticus_ , a.k.a Vp. Symptoms include, but are not limited to, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting, fever and chills, and can last anywhere from one to three days.”  
  
“ _Three days_?” Luffy groaned, once he was able to.  
  
“Three days,” Chopper affirmed. “And that means _complete_ bed rest – no games, no fighting, and you’ll be kept on a strict diet until I deem you well enough to begin eating normally again.”  
  
“What?!”  
  
“It’s for your own good.” Usopp passed the glass of water to him. Luffy rinsed and spat out his mouth, grimacing at the aftertaste. He was shivering already, bent over double from the cramps, and his back felt a little too warm against Usopp’s hand. “The faster you recover, the faster you can get back on your feet to join us.”  
  
“But – but three days!” Luffy turned puppy eyes on him. Usopp winced. “ _Three days!_ _**Three days.**_ ”  
  
“Shut up already.”  
  
“It’s your fault.” Choper crossed his arms, trying to look as authoritative as he could in his small form. “You _were_ thoroughly advised against eating potentially dangerous raw foods.”  
  
Luffy gave a pathetic sort of whimper, and shriveled against the counter.  
  
“Usopp will stick with you during that period,” the reindeer decided, as a revision.  
  
“ _What?!_ ”  
  
Luffy plastered himself to Usopp’s body joyfully, opened his mouth… and went unexpectedly limp. They caught him before he hit the floor, and dragged the captain off to bed.  
  
“But you’re the doctor,” he grumbled to Chopper, after Luffy had fallen asleep, “how come I end up taking care of everything?”  
  
“I only administer the medicine.” Chopper had shrugged, and grinned at the sleeping captain. “But you can help speed up the healing process.”  
  
The sniper sighed a long-suffering sigh. “Three days it is, then.”


	16. From Sun Up to Sun Down (G) Lu/Uso/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Usopp has an extensive volcabulary that no one else understands.
> 
> #066 Colour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ficlets that were written for ot3_100 on LJ.  
> Mostly fluff and dumbassery.

Sunrises and sunsets were a spectacle of nature that the little reindeer could never get enough of. Back on Drum Island, the sky was a constant wash of various shades of white, and when he saw the sun setting for the first time, a blaze of flammeous glory sinking into the sea like a dying phoenix, he was so awestruck he couldn’t talk for hours.  
  
Usopp sat by him, speaking excitedly of how the sun was really a beautiful goddess; of her vanity and fiery temper that no one dared to tame. _When she awakes_ , the sniper had grinned at him, _the amount of makeup she uses is horrendous; but nature has been gracious to let her look stunning no matter what she chooses to wear._  
  
Sunrise the next day brought out splashes of nacarat and goldenrod, mauve and puce; blushes of violet and coquelicot and thinly-drawn layers of ruby and ochre scattered across the lightening sky. Chopper didn’t understand half the intricate terms that tumbled from the sniper’s lips, but it didn’t stop him from gasping in wonder, squealing from the amount of overwhelming awesome that threatened to burst out of him.  
  
They watched the sunset again that evening, with Luffy perched on the figurehead as always, Chopper seated on the railings on his left, Usopp with his legs dangling over the water on his right. The reindeer sighed happily, as the sniper began weaving a new tale about the sun drawing her star-spangled blanket of midnight up over her body of embers, the pale prince of night gently laying her down to sleep. And then they were left with staring out over inky blackness, a glowing halo of azuline ringing the full moon overhead.  
  
The captain frowned. “But orange is orange, red is red, and yellow is yellow. You use too many difficult words, Usopp.”  
  
“Dumbass, just play along,” the sniper argued back, “it adds sophistication to the story. Spice. Life.”  
  
“Fine,” Luffy grumbled, and pointed at a random drifting cloud overhead that was tinged a grey shade of navy. “That’s sleepy-blue. And I’m going to bed.”  
  
He slid off the figurehead and fell face-first onto the wood, already snoring. Chopper and Usopp stared.  
  
“…I think,” Chopper said, stifling a yawn, “I’m getting sleepy too.”  
  
“Geez.” Usopp grabbed his dozing crewmates, dragged them off to bed. Really, no one appreciated well-told stories these days.


	17. Thaw (PG) Lu/Uso/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Replace the bad with the good. 
> 
> #067. Snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ficlets that were written for ot3_100 on LJ.  
> Mostly fluff and dumbassery.

When Chopper thinks about snow, he thinks of a cold so numb it hurts every time his heart beats, the way ice wraps about the freezing muscle and _squeezes_ until he’s choked blue. He sees scarlet flowers leading across a field of deathly white, he hears the gunshots; he hears the desperate roar of a single man willing to save him, blunted grey by the snowstorm. He hears the explosions, hears the dying over and over again.  
  
He’d broken out in tears before, while Usopp had been telling the tale of the princess who lived with the seven dwarfs, or the glacial lady who froze windowpanes with her still gaze, and kissed crystal flakes upon the glass with her lips of ice. Luffy had flustered himself trying to calm the youngest nakama down, and none of the sniper’s other tales seemed to be helping.  
  
“Some nightmares don’t go away that easily,” Nami chides them gently later. A hand runs tender fingers through the fur atop the sleeping child doctor’s head, as the two boys sit across from her in silence, legs folded beneath them, heads quietly bowed.  
  
“Chopper’s stupid,” Luffy growls suddenly.  
  
Usopp hits him, but they all know the comment wasn’t meant to maul and no one says anything to rebut it.  
  
They reach another winter island a couple days later. The reindeer watches warily from a porthole, as the crew head outside to stretch their limbs. Luffy and Usopp are already at war, snowballs flying in all directions while they slip and skid over the thick glaze of snow. Their laughter falls flat on Chopper’s ears, and he’s about to turn away when one of the bigger snowballs mash right into the window.  
  
He jolts, eyes wide, staring at the frost spreading menacingly out across the glass - and he might have started crying from panic if it wasn’t for the squeal of a gloved finger drawing shapes against the pane.  
  
Chopper blinks the tears away, eyes growing wider more from amazement than fear as he watches the finger move, parting the sheen of snow against the glass; he shrieks, when Luffy’s head suddenly squelches against the misshapen smiley face he’s drawn there, where Usopp’s smashed him into. There’s snow up Luffy’s nostrils, and his rubber lips are twisted hideously out of shape, eyes rolling as he garbles incoherently –  
  
Chopper’s laughter echoes like sleigh bells.


	18. Rain (G) Lu/Uso/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It sucks being stuck indoors.
> 
> #068 Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ficlets that were written for ot3_100 on LJ.  
> Mostly fluff and dumbassery.

The rain pattered pleasingly against the ceiling above, and next to Usopp Luffy growled, and clapped his hands over his ears. The captain loved playing in the rain, loved skidding about barefoot on the slippery decks while he drank what heaven offered them; how the wind plastered cold clothes against his body and the funny squishing sounds they made when he moved about in them. But Nami had given him a severe warning not to fool around again after he accidentally slipped off the side of the ship – too close, that one time – effectively barring him from what he’d once seen as an enjoyable activity.  
  
Chopper, on the other hand, was buried somewhere under the sniper’s left armpit and absolutely refused to detach himself, huddling even closer for body warmth and a constant source of comfort, eyes wide and blue nose quivering.  
  
Usopp preferred being restfully unconscious until the storm was over, but after ten minutes of unsuccessfully trying to ignore his fitful nakama, he sighed, swung his legs over the side of his hammock, and beckoned to the two with a silent, crooked finger.  
  
Luffy expressed some delight at getting drenched, when the sniper began leading them out the men’s quarters, but promptly grew disappointed again when he shut them inside the empty, unlit storeroom. After motioning for Chopper not to touch the light switch, Usopp drew up his night sleeves, and extended both arms into the moonlight shining through the porthole onto the floor.  
  
The rain cast mysterious, continually-shifting shadows onto the white-washed skin of the sniper’s arms: uneven stripes, half-rings, patches and spots, like the pelt of a hundred different wild animals uniquely blended together. Voice lowered to a secretive hush, Usopp eased them into a quiet story, bringing them back to a time when animals gathered to choose the skins they would wear. Luffy completely forgot about wanting to be outside, and Chopper’s expression melted from fear to unblinking awe.  
  
The rain patted a soothing, gentle fall against the walls outside, and it wasn’t long before Luffy found his eyelids getting inexplicably heavy, while Chopper tried to stifle a yawn. Both were sound asleep by the time Usopp had ended his little tale, curled up on either side of him with tiny smiles on their faces.  
  
_Finally._ Usopp rolled his eyes, but drifted off to long-awaited sleep with a smile of his own.


	19. Worse than Nightmares (T) Lu/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The worst kind of situation is the one you have no control over.
> 
> #083 Weakness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post Movie 6. Angst.

Luffy’s fever had been sudden, albeit not entirely unexpected, but his temperature chose to spike at the oddest times of the day and the absence of his cheery laughter was largely disconcerting.  
  
The bandages kept coming off. After repeated attempts to still his tossing patient Chopper gave up and moved in instead, taking up temporary permanent residence next to where Luffy lay shuddering beneath thick blankets, wet cloths over his eyes and his straw hat pressed into his palms.  
  
Sometimes the fever left him. Luffy would be peaceful then, lanky limbs sprawled loose and carefree over the sheets. But the grace periods were short and infrequent, and evening saw the captain thrashing again, screaming.  
  
Chopper said it was delirium.  
  
“You bastard, you fucking, fucking _bastard._ ”  
  
Luffy never uses the word “fuck”. It’s coarse and harsh and he said he doesn’t use it because it’s ugly.  
  
“You fucking bastard, I hate you, give them back, _give them back –_ ”  
  
“It’s okay, Luffy, we’re here.” The tears spill from Chopper’s eyes but he keeps his face professionally neutral, as he wraps Luffy in his arms, pushes him back into the bed. Already the bandages are unraveling and they reveal more than bruised skin and broken bones. He’s punctured everywhere, peppered with them; ugly, bleeding holes that riddle every visible inch of his flesh.  
  
Luffy’s hands scrabble against the close wall, leave frantic, bloody pleas. His eyes are wide open but he doesn’t see.  
  
“Robin. Chopper. Sanji. Usopp. Nami. Zoro. Oh, god, Zoro, _Zoro_ , dammit, fuck, _fuck you, Baron, give them back –_ ”  
  
Eventually the night terror wears off and Luffy collapses again, dropping limply back against the bed like he was dead and if he breathed you didn’t see it. Chopper takes a while to reign in the cries that scream to burst from his gritted grimace. Then he gets back to re-bandaging Luffy.  
  
Outside the room Usopp turns away from the porthole, makes his way back to bed. He knows he won’t sleep. Now he understands why Chopper forbade any of them to help.  
  
He enters the quarters. The others greet him with solemn cat gazes, and he joins them in waiting for the new dawn to come. For now, they can only hope. And pray.  
  
_You can’t fight an enemy that isn’t there anymore._


	20. Preservatives (PG) Lu/Uso/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exaggeration is the way to go.
> 
> #078. Taste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ficlets that were written for ot3_100 on LJ.  
> Mostly fluff and dumbassery.

Usopp had blinked, first. Just a quick little blink of surprise, before his face imploded as he scrunched up every facial muscle available, strong wrinkles radiating from between his eyes and the bridge of his nose, lips pressed tightly pale; shoulders pulled back so high he was nearly shriveling into himself as he banged a frantic fist on the table, the other clawing at his throat. Eyes bulging, face turning red, then purple, then white, then blue; before he squeezed both bloodshot eyes shut and made a great show out of swallowing, chin raised high, Adam’s apple bobbing grotesquely.  
  
Then he whudded face-down on the table, bonelessly motionless, and started foaming rabidly at the mouth.  
  
“AHH! USOPP, DON’T DIE!” Chopper shot out of his seat opposite for the tenth time that afternoon, and once more began frantically shaking the sniper in an effort to snap him back into “consciousness”.  
  
“AWESOMMMME,” Luffy shrieked, laughing so hard he was in danger of falling off his chair. “DO THAT AGAIN!”  
  
Sanji walloped all of them across the head with a frying pan that had been solely served for that purpose. “PRUNES, YOU IDIOTS, SALTED PRUNES; DEAL WITH THE TASTE AND FINISH OFF THE DAMN PLATE YOU WERE GIVEN ALREADY.”


	21. Treats (G) Lu/Uso/Cho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #085. Sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short ficlets that were written for ot3_100 on LJ.  
> Mostly fluff and dumbassery.

“It’s kind of… I dunno, cute."  
  
Zoro gives Sanji a slow turn of the head. “…Cute.”  
  
“Yeah. For lack of a better word. …I know _I’ve_ never seen Luffy share his _food_ before.”  
  
They watch, as Usopp digs about in the little plastic bag, fishing around for a bit before pulling out something small. He winds back hard, chucking it across the room, and Luffy and Chopper bolt from their resting positions, the captain running comically on all fours before he leaps into the air.  
  
It plays almost as if in slow motion: the way Chopper’s mouth forms an ‘O’ as he gasps in shock, before he gets a look of deviousness that was obviously inherited from the sniper; and he balloons into Heavy Point mid-jump, bludgeoning the smaller human out of the way. Luffy yelps in betrayal, but he twists about impossibly, and stretches his neck around the reindeer’s form to close triumphant teeth about the tossed cookie.  
  
Then it’s in real time again and both captain and doctor hit the deck, scuffling madly about on the floor, all snapping teeth and playful growls and fists in hair and fur as they roll along the ground. Eventually Chopper has to do his best tearful whine, and Luffy laughs as he holds the edge of the uneaten cookie between his teeth, offering just enough for the doctor to happily bite off.  
  
_“We won’t get anywhere with this game, if you idiots keep tying the score,”_ Usopp shouts, frustrated, and naturally he goes ignored.  
  
“…moronically cute,” Zoro amends, watching as his younger crewmembers scramble to pester Usopp for his next throw.  
  
Sanji exhales a puff of smoke around a smile. “Like I said.”


	22. First Kisses (T) Luffy/Usopp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're never perfect. But they can get better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mentionings of sexual activity and blood. Overall rating is fluff, though. Slight feminism issues, maybe. No offense intended.
> 
> Originally posted Dec. 21st, 2006

His first kiss had been in a dream.  
  
He had been crying. It was at a little fishing jetty, he was nine years old, and there was a bicycle stuck out in the middle of the lake where it was slowly sinking.  
  
A lady with an umbrella and a yellow dress had come by. _Is anything the matter?_ she had asked kindly.  
  
 _My bike’s fallen into the lake,_ he said.  
  
She looked. He remembered thinking it was odd that she had such short, brown hair.  
  
 _That can’t be yours,_ she said. _It’s too big for you._  
  
 _My bike’s fallen into the lake. The fishes will eat it if you don’t hurry._  
  
The lady had waded out. Her skirt caught the air as she lowered herself into the murky waters, until it was high around her waist like large beach balls. Her gloved hands caught the bicycle bars.   
  
And then she started sinking.  
  
 _Give it back,_ he cried, guilt and fear mixing into a tight uncomfortable thing inside his chest, _that’s mine, give it back._  
  
 _I can’t swim,_ she said.  
  
And suddenly she was before him – an ice-cold hand wrapped around his wrist, dragged him in, and she kissed him.   
  
And Usopp woke up wondering what the hell that had been about and what kind of weird shit Sanji had been putting in his nightly cocoa because damn but what the hell? But he forgot about it later.   
  


_x x x x x x_

  
  
Luffy screamed.   
  
“Dammit, Luffy!” but the shock had already sent the rows of dominoes tumbling, a waterfall chain of black tiles that spiraled out from where both boys had been working back to back for the past how long had it been?   
  
“What the hell?”  
  
“I bit my lip!”  
  
“You bit your lip.”  
  
“It hurt!”  
  
It sounded like a casino, Usopp decided, with his hands around the other’s throat while the dominoes continued their merry toppling, the way the plastic chinked against each other, like little coins; except this was nothing worth being happy over and there’d been nothing won, and he was sick of staring at little white dots against black.  
  
“Dying,” Luffy informed him, eyes rolling madly while his fingers scrabbled to take the hands off his throat.  
  
Usopp waited while Luffy hacked some air into his lungs. A miracle the idiot even needed air at all, and in a short string of somewhat irrelevant thoughts Usopp concluded that his brain certainly seemed independent of functioning on it. He had to, though – of course he had to – because the spot of blossoming blood on his lower lip was of a fresh cerise.   
  
Luffy licked it away, made a face at the coppery taste.   
  
“Why were you even chewing on your lip?”  
  
“I was thinking hard.”  
  
“I’m amazed.”  
  
“No, really. You know like how you zone out after thinking about some random crazy stuff? I did that, and halfway I was like, what was I even thinking about in the first place? And I tried backtracking so I didn’t end up concentrating anyway – ”  
  
He’d lost himself somewhere listening to Luffy babble. He found some satisfaction in making the tiles click against each other as he flicked them into his palm, picking the fallen pieces off the ground.   
  
“ – but at least we’re not bored now,” the idiot concluded, “funner though, isn’t it? If we’d done it and then made everything collapse that would have been predictable and therefore, boring. It’s like routine? If everything follows a schedule it’s like clockwork, like lifeless – ”  
  
Sometimes he found himself amazed by how long Luffy could keep himself occupied, if he wasn’t disturbed by the punch or kick that usually shut up him. The boy could go on forever talking about his thoughts and the funny things the mushy stuff in his skull other people termed a brain could conjure. Most, like the rest of him, were often stupid and illogical. But sometimes Luffy threw out things, interesting things, simple things, actually, that made sense.  
  
“Hey, Usopp! You know what a snail looks like, right?”   
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“You know, when you poke it long enough it goes back into its shell and stays in there.”  
  
“Why would I need to poke a snail?”  
  
“I thought it’s kind of a bit like Robin.”  
  
“…Robin’s a snail?”  
  
“But after a while if you don’t poke it so much it’ll come out again.” Luffy’s train of thought had abruptly switched over to its previous track. “I think maybe if you keep talking to her, one day she’ll smile. She still doesn’t really like you poking at her, but maybe she’ll get used to it. Robin’s funny like that.”  
  
 _He talks like he’s an old friend of hers or something,_ Usopp thought scornfully, but kept the note in mind even as they brushed the plastic tiles together to put into a bag for later play. Nami’d beat them pretty bad the last time they’d forgotten to pack.  
  


_x x x x x x_

  
  
“ _No_ , idiot, you’ll make it worse.”  
  
“I know what I’m doing, dammit, just stay still.”  
  
Luffy gripped like his first name. Of all the other places their bodies came into contact with, he was only really aware of the white-knuckled, limber-fingered grip on his wrists, held immobile above his own head.  
  
“It hurts like hell, hurry up.”   
  
“Stop talking so much, damn! I said I know what I’m doing.”  
  
 _I keep forgetting to tell him he needs to brush his mouth more thoroughly,_ Usopp thought randomly, as Luffy’s breath washed over him; he could actually taste the various meats he’d eaten for that dinner. The other’s face drew closer and closer, staring, focused, and Usopp really really wanted to blink but couldn’t.  
  
Luffy stuck his tongue out and rammed it into his eye.  
  
“OWSHITDAMMITAHITHURTSITHURTS – ”  
  
“Gah! I’m sorry!”  
  
“YOU FORCED THE SPLINTER IN DEEPER YOU IDIOT DAMMIT AHHHH PAINPAINPAIN! PAAAAAAIN – ”  
  
“Chopper!” Luffy yelled about ten minutes too late.  
  


_x x x x x x_

  
  
“Do you not understand how very wrong it is to wake up on a daily basis hugging your very male friend; trying to hold his hand while walking around the new market on a new island; feeling up his chest; squeezing his shapely a – ”  
  
“Oi! I do NOT squeeze your ass. And it isn’t shapely. ‘Shapely’ is Nami’s.”  
  
A simultaneous freeze and a rapid scan of the room assured that neither Sanji nor their navigator was with them. They heaved a sigh.   
  
“You do not touch other guys.”  
  
“Why not? Girls touch other girls.”  
  
“I will ignore how wrong that sounds. Guys are men. We don’t do girly stuff like touching and holding and hugging and all that crap.”  
  
“But other boys do it. I’ve seen other boys hold hands. I held hands with other boys when I was little.”  
  
“Me too but – BUT THAT IS BESIDE THE POINT what I’m saying is, you do NOT try to hold hands with me. Or anything else with me, for that matter. It’s gross. And girly.”   
  
Luffy pouted.   
  
“I won’t hold you if you die then. Like the heroes do in movies, when The Girl dies and they catch her and look dramatic and heroic and all. I won’t hold you. Because it’s grossssss and giiiirly.”  
  
“Fine with me.” He had no interest in being The Girl anyway.   
  
They sulked in silence for the rest of that afternoon.   
  


_x x x x x x_

  
  
“Kill me,” Usopp said. He spoke from within the broom cabinet. “Please, kill me.”  
  
“Unfortunately, we still need a sniper onboard this ship.” Sanji dressed without batting an eyelid. “We’ll kill you when we find a replacement.”   
  
“Kill yourself?” Zoro suggested.  
  
“I have a fear of blood-resulting-from-self-abuse. I can’t do _sepukku_.”   
  
“Pity.”  
  
“Just kill me, dammit. I need to die. Very badly.”  
  
“We understand, Usopp, there’s no need to get all flustered.”  
  
“It’s normal.”  
  
The doors of the cupboard remained closed. “Stop. Smiling.”  
  
They sniggered. Bastards.   
  
“I wonder what Miss Kaya-chan would say if she knew.”  
  
“Don’t you dare! Don’t you bloody dare.”  
  
“But the redhead witch would kill us regarding the postage bill. Syrup Village – quite a way from here.”  
  
“Luffy’s corpse is probably already in the ocean, being picked at by fish as we speak, after he told her. Or tried to tell her.”  
  
“He told her?!”  
  
“He wanted to know why you kept calling him ‘Kaya’ when he obviously wasn’t. We were too busy laughing our heads off slash gapping in amusem – horror.”  
  
“Ass. Holes!”  
  
“It’s normal, Usopp. Signs that you’re, you know. Growing up.”  
  
“At last.”  
  
“Frottage and wet dreams are part of all mens’ lives.”  
  
“That sounded like a very bad cocktail mix.”   
  
“Did not need the mental images. Oh, god.”  
  
“Rise and shine, Longnose. But before that, wash up.”  
  


_x x x x x x_

  
  
The arrow went through like his skin was melted butter.   
  
He was expecting Luffy to stagger to a stop, let out one of his fearsome roars and charge back to beat the shit out of the other guy. Luffy didn’t go down after one hit.   
  
But Luffy was terribly beaten, terribly injured, looking incredibly close to passing out and the arrow took him down like he was a shot pheasant.   
  
The spreading blood grew an inch wider with every passing second.  
  
 _Get up,_ he was screaming, _get up, get up, get up, get up, get up…_  
  
Four more arrows came, nailed Luffy into the ground. His body jerked with the aftershocks.   
  
_get up get up get up get up_  
  
He saw Luffy clench his eyes shut, tense his hand, rip it clear off the floor where the arrow had pinned it. The blood slid off the feathered shaft like rain from a duck’s back, went flying like a thousand scarlet beads as he ripped the other hand free. Luffy screamed, soundlessly.   
  
More arrows kept coming, didn’t stop coming, the steady patter of piercing rain against the stone ground as Luffy struggled onwards. Like a rice sack being gunned down, grains spilling everywhere.  
  
And then Luffy halted, stuck fast like a scarecrow, needled like a pincushion on every inch of skin he had save for his face.  
  
And looked at him, Usopp.  
  
The ragged hole that was supposed to have been Luffy’s mouth moved.  
  
 _don’t look away_  
  
The next arrow went through both his ears and out.  
  
He remembered thinking, _only Zoro bleeds like that, not Luffy._   
  


_x x x x x x_

  
  
“Sometimes I dream about my girl. Well, except, she’s not really my girl, but I wish she was, it’s just that we never really, you know, said stuff, before I left, and… and now it’s kind of too late and… and anyway. Sometimes I dream about my girl. Sometimes normal things, sometimes embarrassing things. But sometimes someone else replaces her. Someone I don’t normally think about in _that_ manner.” Pause. Whisper. “It’s a boy, too.”  
  
“Well, could mean sev’ral thin’s, honey. First, yer gay. Sec’nd, yer bi.”  
  
“No, wait, what, that didn’t make sense?”  
  
“…it could mean a threesome,” the old gypsy mused, squinting at him with her wrinkled eyes from behind a veil of beads and distracting, sparkly sequins.  
  
“B-but – but blood,” Usopp protested, gripping the knees of his overalls as he leant forward, eyes wide and alarmed, “I keep seeing him dying. And – and doing embarrassing things with me. Now, I draw the line at pre-marital, but sometimes after I wake up I don’t know what’s real and what’s not.”  
  
“Well, he didn’ die, so obviously it ain’t real.”  
  
“I know that of course but – but I love Kaya! I do, really. Just why the hell does he keep popping up in my thoughts like that? There are other guys onboard the ship and not that they would be any better, but why him? Why?!”  
  
“Time up,” the woman said, and chased him out of her tent. “You wan’ more answers you giv’ more money. Now scat!”   
  


_x x x x x x_

  
  
“Sanji said Chamomile tea might make you feel better.”  
  
Luffy set the cup down with far too much tenderness and graveness than necessary, and solemnly lowered himself into the chair opposite.   
  
Usopp stared at his tea.  
  
“…He said he would be busy serving Nami and Robin.”  
  
“Ah.”  
  
For a long time Luffy didn’t talk. Usopp wished he would. Normally it was he himself who did the talking, liven up the atmosphere with some bullshit stories that made the captain slap his knees and split his sides. He wondered where the talkative Luffy had run off to, the one who would ramble on about things that didn’t make sense in any other way except the Luffy Way. He could have used it.   
  
“Talk.”  
  
“Ah?”  
  
“Talk to me. I don’t really like silence.”  
  
“Okay.” Luffy kicked his heels. “What about?”  
  
“…anything. Something. …mashed potatoes.”  
  
“I like whole potatoes better.”  
  
“Peeling… bothersome.”  
  
“Yep.”  
  
Silence.  
  
“Whole potatoes are nice. Mashing them is like ruining them? But they still taste the same and pretty great, too. Once you add the bacon bits and mayonnaise and cheese and lettuce and tuna and cactus and pig trotters and – “  
  
“Cactus?”  
  
“I like cactus. Is there a problem?”   
  
“…How the hell do you eat cactus?”  
  
“You open your mouth, put it in; chew, swallow; hope the needles don’t get lodged in your windpipe on the way down; pray they don’t clog up your anus when you’re – ”  
  
Usopp laughed.   
  
“God, I hate this,” he said when he’d calmed down.  
  
Luffy kept quiet.  
  
“I mean, how the hell… I don’t even… but I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s annoying me. But I don’t… I can’t… You’re not like that to me. It’s just… I don’t…”  
  
Usopp picked up his cup of Chamomile tea and sipped it. Still hot. Okay.  
  
“Are you scared?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Luffy kicked his heels.   
  
“…not really, at least, I mean, I don’t know.”  
  
“Then you _are_ scared.”  
  
“No. Just…”  
  
“Love is crappy. They say if you like someone and they think they like you too you just kiss each other and see what happens. If you start blowing up inside and fireworks go off in the sky outside, it’s love. If not, it’s not.”  
  
“Who the hell told you shit like that?”  
  
“Can’t remember. I was very young. Anyway, it happens in the movies, so it must be true.”  
  
The spoon made contemplative chinking sounds against the china as the sniper absent-mindedly stirred.   
  
“Did we mention anything about kissing?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“When I said I wasn’t going to hold you when you died.”  
  
“Oh.” Pause. “I don’t think so.”  
  
“So…”  
  
“So…”  
  
“No harm trying. Whole potatoes and mashed potatoes. Same thing.”  
  
“What?”  
  
But Luffy was already moving across, determination in that grim line of lip as he shoved past Usopp’s knees and sat himself next to the sniper. Blew out a breath of air – his breath still stunk, was he going to kiss that? Wait, they were kissing? – so it ruffled his bangs and shot the other a sideways look.   
  
The dregs in the base of his teacup looked like a solar system. There was a huge pile in the center where the stirring had thrown them, and a few smaller pieces were still settling in their orbits.   
  
“We c-can’t just do it like this.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“It feels weird. Not right.”  
  
“I wouldn’t know, I’ve only seen the guys kiss the girls onscreen. I don’t know how the guy kissing the guy is supposed to be like.”  
  
There weren’t any splinters in his eye this time, nothing to distract him from the way one of Luffy’s knees was against his groin – probably unconsciously placed there for balance and what the hell, he’d been beside him, when had he gotten this close? And it was that look again, the one that said don’t look away while Usopp was screaming inside. He kept his fingers rooted to each other, as Luffy pressed in close, pushed his head back, and kissed him.   
  
After a few seconds they broke apart. Luffy scrubbed at his lips.   
  
“Ugh.”  
  
“That was weird.”  
  
“Very weird.”  
  
“Weird.”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
He was playing violin on his lips with his wrist.   
  
“I’ve never kissed a boy before. Not a girl neither, but… did you feel any explosions?”  
  
Usopp resisted the urge to lick his lips clean of Luffy germs.  
  
“I don’t think so. I feel very weird.”  
  
 _“Stop saying that.”_  
  
“So it’s not love?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“Oh.”   
  
Luffy dumped himself opposite, made a game of seeing how fast he could run his tongue over his upper teeth while looking down his own nose.   
  
“Your tea’s getting cold,” he pointed out after a while.   
  
Usopp drank in silence.   
  


_x x x x x x_

  
  
Luffy was probably the only person stupid enough to try cycling off a cliff without checking what was beneath him. _No,_ Usopp told himself, ripping off his shirt and boots as he went, yanking dark plastic over his eyes, _he_ is _the only person stupid enough to do that._  
  
He dove in.   
  
It reminded him of all the times he had to take a cold shower. The water was this cold, cold enough it felt his dick could freeze and fall off. Except it was quiet, like his nights up in the crow’s nest, entombed in a womb of airless darkness.   
  
It was wrong and disturbing to think that Luffy had to take cold showers too, but he did. Usopp’d walked in on the captain too many times to count, and all unwanted – Luffy didn’t come with sanity-back guarantee – thankfully not while he had been finishing, although catching him midway was bad enough. _It was this quiet,_ he thought, even as he drove himself deeper into the depths, kicking soundlessly like a fetus, _whenever Luffy finished._ He never made any noise.   
  
Stupid thing to think about when your best friend was drowning slash possibly dying, but he thought about it.   
  
At some point in his search, he forgot to come up for air. Time was being a bitch and he still hadn’t located Luffy and he’d gone on searching with that thought of ‘just a little bit more’.   
  
And then he spotted the bicycle and the blue-tinted figure still holding steadfast to the handles.   
  
He kicked hard, jetted over to where Luffy was swaying. He was unconscious, eyes closed, and a couple of air bubbles lifted from his nostrils and zigzagged away as Usopp grabbed him.   
  
_Let go of the damn bike._ He pried Luffy’s fingers off using his nails, dragged them back to the distant surface as fast as he was able to. He wanted gills. There was oxygen all around him that he couldn’t use. A couple of curious fish swam past as he kicked them back up and Usopp found himself hating the lucky bastards, mind fuzzy at the edges and not quite making sense.  
  
He smashed through the surface, hauled Luffy up. Kicked frantically as he coughed and sucked in air and shook his head hard so his hair could smack back behind him.   
  
“Shit. Luffy?”   
  
Luffy looked like he was sleeping. He faced that same stupid close-eyed face every morning.   
  
“Dammit, oi, Luffy.”   
  
He started heading for shore. He wasn’t sure where the hell the shore was but it had to be somewhere, as long as he kept Luffy’s head tilted up and his mouth open and his legs moving. He prayed very hard he didn’t get muscle cramp.   
  
“Luffy, oi, come on. Wake up. Sanji’s cooking a whole leg of meat right now, can you smell it? I’m going to eat it if you don’t wake up.”  
  
The shoreline was ten meters away. Ten meters had never felt so goddamn far.  
  
“Asshole, don’t ignore me. Wake up.”  
  
His bare feet struck against sharp rocks. Usopp staggered in the water, found his footing. Too tired to lift Luffy off the painful gravel. He dragged the captain up on his back. Screw the wounds. Nothing Chopper couldn’t fix.   
  
“Luffy. _Luffy._ Oi. Asshole, answer me!”  
  
Normally after he took a bath in cold water it felt like he was warmer than everything else around him. Usopp’s fingers scrambled to find a pulse in the ice that was his friend’s body. He didn’t know how to take a pulse anyway, but something should have been beating. Screw the wrist. He flipped Luffy’s hand over (it flopped like the dead fish he’d seen Sanji handle) and tried to find the large vein running along the back of the hand.   
  
“Fuck.”  
  
Even his body felt like ice, the fucking idiot, like the shower wall. Usopp’s ear burned from the touch, as he smashed the side of his face to that thin ribcage (had Luffy always been this skinny? He seemed larger before.) and desperately tried to locate a heartbeat. After a while he gave up, put both hands against what he hoped was the diaphragm and started pumping. Where the hell was Chopper. Where the hell were Nami and Robin and Zoro and Sanji and how come nobody had the sense to NOT trust their captain to go cycling with a bicycle alone in an area where there was a body of water, where he wouldn’t be able to fucking swim –   
  
“Breathe, fuck you!”   
  
He forced air into Luffy’s mouth. It was like kissing a fish, his lips were cold. Everything about him was fucking cold. Luffy was supposed to feel warm and rubbery like the idiot he was whenever they shared their hammocks or played dominoes. Like when he was trying to lick the stupid splinter from his eye or when his blood splashed his feet or when he was kissing him not cold NOT COLD.   
  
And then Luffy vomited into his mouth.   
  
He watched as the idiot threw up all over himself, trying to crawl so he was on his stomach but failing. Usopp wiped his mouth off on his sleeve, hauled Luffy up and supported him while he gagged. Thumped his back. Wasn’t sure what thumping a back had to do with clearing the airways but figured it wouldn’t hurt. Luffy was the invincible rubber bastard and nothing could hurt him.   
  
“You idiot. You idiot. You _idiot._ ”  
  
“That was refreshing.” Luffy coughed hard, gasped, scrubbed at his nose and eyes in the wrong order so he smeared all over himself.  
  
“If you say ‘let’s do it again’, I will kill you.” Usopp couldn’t stop shaking. The lake had been cold. “I _swear_ , I will kill you.”   
  


_x x x x x x_

  
  
“What happens when a caterpillar goes into its chrysatalis anyway? It’s like, it magically becomes a butterfly.”  
  
“’Chrysalis’, dumbass. And it _is_ kind of magical.”  
  
“Chopper said it turns into gunk and then the gunk reforms. It’s kind of cool. The wings are so thin. And pretty.”  
  
By mutual agreement none of them spoke about the incident. If the crew asked it was simply because they’d ran into a small mishap near the lake of the camp site. Zoro had raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Robin kept on reading, but the quirk of her lips was a dead giveaway. Usopp’d tried to get Sanji to kill him again. He was rejected.   
  
Luffy poked at the chrysalis with a gentle finger, watching as it bounced lightly from his efforts where it hung delicately from a leaf. There were plenty of hedges and bushes in the area and by some miracle they hadn’t yet been destroyed by their vigorous tromping.   
  
“Nothing at all like what it used to be.”  
  
“But it’s still the same creature.”  
  
“On the inside, at least.”  
  
“Mm.”  
  
Luffy collapsed onto his back, flung his arms out and stared at the stars.   
  
“Thanks for saving me.”  
  
“Mmf.”  
  
“Did you kiss me? I remember an explosion. And your face was very close when I woke up.”  
  
“It wasn’t a kiss, idiot, it was life-to-life resuscitation. I mean, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”  
  
“So it was a kiss.”  
  
Luffy was looking far too thoughtful. Danger bells rang.   
  
“Was not, moron. Go to sleep.”  
  
“Will the butterfly come out tomorrow?”  
  
“Maybe. Depends on how long it’s been in its shell. I don’t know.”  
  
“But it’ll be pretty,” Luffy whispered.   
  
“…I guess. Yeah.”   
  
Luffy’s hand caught his before he’d taken three steps back. His hands were warm, like his lips, as he closed the distance between them.   
  
His mouth arched upwards against Usopp’s, and yes, there was that little spark of fire in the pit of his stomach as he tightened his fingers around the captain’s.  
  
“How’s that?” Luffy said a while later.  
  
“…Still weird. Kind of gross.”  
  
“Hm.” He didn’t sound disappointed. “Oh well, it’ll get better.”  
  
They returned to the camp holding hands (like girls). 


End file.
